Trafficking class for men using prostitutes – August 13th, 2012 – 09:26 AM ET By Richard Roth and Patrick Feeeney

CNN – More than 25 men sit in an attorney’s office – each was arrested for prostitution-related offences and each is now trying to avoid jail.

But this is not a defense lawyer’s office. It’s the Brooklyn district attorney’s office and the road away from jail is a lesson in the risks of using prostitutes – Johns School.

Assistant District Attorney Grace Brainard tells them: “The crimes you were arrested for would lead to one penalty and one penalty only and that is jail time. And the next time you are arrested for prostitution, jail time will be the only offer on the table.”

The men were arrested for attempting to pay for sex from undercover policewomen posing as prostitutes on the streets of New York. Men who solicit prostitutes are so-called ‘johns’ and this gathering is known as Johns School.

It’s a program that teaches the dangers and penalties of prostitution and sex trafficking. It’s been going on for the past 10 years under the official name of Project Respect conducted by the Kings County (Brooklyn), NY District Attorney’s office.

Because of their clean record of no previous arrests, the men were given the opportunity to take the three-hour plus course – which cost them more than $300 – and avoid time behind bars. They could have had their day in court but risk of jail time was of great concern.

Rhonnie Jaus, the chief of the Sex Crimes Bureau, said the class attempts to sensitize and educate the men on the dangers of prostitution to both the John and the prostitute.

“You think you’re having sex with an adult, and it turns out it could be something quite different,” Jaus said, “It could be a trafficked child brought from China, brought from South America, so there are many different ramifications of this crime.”

Brainard emphasized that most girls enter prostitution between the ages of 11 and 14. “They were children when they entered this life,” she said.

The men also listened to a lecture from Rosetta Menifee, a former prostitute who had contracted HIV.

“Obviously the goal is not for them (the johns) to do it again,” Menifee said, “but the reality is a lot of them will, so the goal is really to talk about what the risks are so that the have the knowledge of it from different perspectives, and hopefully they’ll make better choices.”

Different speakers pointed out the different risks inherent with solicitation.

Grace Pabarue, a public health educator at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, highlighted sexually transmitted diseases in a photo slideshow.

Former NYPD Lieutenant Jeff Anderson said a prostitute could be a potential threat to a John. “Some of them are emotionally disturbed, some of them abuse drugs,” Anderson said. “Many prostitutes can defend themselves, many prostitutes have defended themselves.”

One of the johns who wanted only to be identified as ‘Skeeter,’ said the course showed him different perspectives about the women forced to work in prostitution.

“Some of them have drug habits, maybe some of them work for pimps,” Skeeter said. “I wouldn’t feel good knowing that I’m paying that money, and it’s going to further keep someone so they’re enslaved.”

Prosecutor Jaus said that the sessions also help develop sex trafficking cases and can encourage johns to help prostitutes escape their situation.

“We’ve had a few cases in which the John actually brought the prostitute, who told him about the fact that she was being trafficked, to the police station,” Jaus said.

“He didn’t go in with the young woman, but he dropped her off because she was crying and told him, “look, I’ve been trafficked.””

Brainard told the johns they should report any case of sex trafficking they witness, even if they were soliciting at the time.

“Taking that step to get law enforcement involved does not mean you have to report it yourself,” Brainard said. “In fact, you don’t even have to give your name.”

At the end of the session the johns are given an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal. If they avoid arrest over the following six months, the arrest is wiped off their record.

Despite Menifee’s fear that many will continue using prostitutes, Jaus said the course, which started in 2002, has seen a success rate of more than 90 percent. “Over the past 10 years, we’ve had over 3,000 attendees of the John School,” Jaus said.

“So we’ve only had 26 people rearrested in Brooklyn for patronizing, who have gone through the John school.”

None of the other boroughs of New York offer such an alternative.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

“Obviously the goal is not for them (the johns) to do it again,” . . .

Excuse me, what Johns do with consenting adults of either or indeterminate gender is their own business, and the sex workers who make their own choices as well. This article entirely ignores the issue of consensual prostitutes and nominally illegalizes (quasi moralist-fundo style) the act of buying or selling sexual companionship. Could someone from PONY or SWOP or a relevant advocacy group please communicate with CNN on this unwanted borderline demogoguery? Other than that, the article is well and good, especially the part where Johns should report trafficked women and even drop such victims off at the police station.

But CNN forgets the consensual and Red Light District workers who are there by choice, or even preference and even makes sex workers into potential psychos with all that ‘defending themselves‘ or ‘disturbed‘ or ‘potential threat‘ language. A John is going to have abit of relaxation then be off on their way, just like from caveman times, nothing new here, nothing to make laws around or be woo-woo about. Let feminazi, alpha john, LGBT or good family have their spaces, there will however by no spaces for ‘proselytize into oblivion’ fundo-idealogical types trying to destroy spaces for any specific group.

ARTICLE 2

Prostitution should be legalized in Malaysia – Friday, August 6, 2010

The Star of August 6, 2010 highlighted on its front page the case of a van driver in Petaling Jaya accused of raping two minors. Why didn’t he satisfy his lust in a cheap brothel in Kuala Lumpur’s red-light districts such as Lorong Haji Taib or Brickfields? Simply because there are no more cheap brothels left for him to patronize! (A van driver can’t afford a RM200 full-service package in a high-class spa, can he?). Depending on which side of the fence you are on, it’s either thanks or no thanks to the efforts of our police. However, it has been postulated that the non-availability of sex workers to men who can’t control their desires is a contributing factor to rape. (I prefer to refer to prostitutes as sex-workers because they perform a service).

According to a website (http://prostitution.procon.org), prostitution is legal in 50 countries, enjoys limited legality in 10 countries, and is illegal in 40 other countries. Every men worth his testosterone knows the nearest sex haven is across the Causeway in Singapore’s Geylang district. If a country that bans chewing gum can permit prostitution and legal brothel ownership, something must be good to it. Of course, I’m referring to voluntary prostitution by adults, not forced prostitution or trafficked women. Just compare the number of sex crimes in Singapore as a percentage of its population to the same statistic for Malaysia.

In fact, empirical evidence has established the correlation between the lack of brothels and high number of rape cases in the following studies:

–Kirby R. Cundiff, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Finance at Northeastern State University in his working paper entitled “Prostitution and Sex Crimes” submitted to Independent Institute on Apr. 8, 2004, wrote: “It is estimated that if prostitution were legalized in the United States, the rape rate would decrease by roughly 25% for a decrease of approximately 25,000 rapes per year…. The analysis seems to support the hypothesis that the rape rate could be lowered if prostitution was more readily available. This would be accomplished in most countries by its legalization.”

–R.N. Barber’s article entitled “Prostitution and Increasing Number of Convictions for Rape in Queensland” (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. 1969 (vol. 2 issue 3) stated: “A study conducted in Queensland… show[ed] a 149% increase in the rate of rape when legal brothels were closed in 1959, while other offenses against the person by males increased only 49%.”

So, my point is that sex workers perform a role in society by allowing men and women to relieve themselves of sexual tension and desire. Without this biological urge, given by God, humans would have become extinct long ago. Therefore, prostitution should be legalized in Malaysia and strictly regulated, of course.

If Turkey, which has a 99% Muslim population, can legalize prostitution, why not our country? Also, according to the Coalition Against Traficking in Women, Indonesia, another Muslim-majority country, has “localised bordello complexes, or ‘localisasi’ managed under local government regulations”. (http://www.catwinternational.org)

Sex website http://longpenisworld.com stated: “Though prostitution is technically illegal in Indonesia, the government continues to run and operate the Kramat Tunggak, a red-light district in North Jakarta. The largest in the world, the district spans 28 acres, with more than 220 brothels populated by between 1,000 to 2,000 girls.”

Another point is that so much attention is focused on female prostitution that male sex-workers are often overlooked in terms of arrests. For instance, why are female sex-workers always targetted in anti-vice raids? Have we ever read news of gigolos being caught by our anti-vice police? Yes, but seldom. (Even so, our mainstream newspapers don’t bother to show pictures of the arrested male sex-workers but pictures of female sex workers are often splashed prominently in prime pages.)

The scores of male sex-workers in our gay massage parlours, spas and gyms are often left alone to enjoy their sodomy in bliss, not to mention the straight studs servicing ageing widows, divorcees, old spinsters and bored housewives with impotent husbands. (A Google search will hook up several Kuala Lumpur-based agencies offering male escorts).

Industry sources have told me stories of policemen posing as customers to visit brothels and nabbing female sex-workers. If the law is to be imposed across genders, shouldn’t policemen also pose as customers in gay massage parlours to nab male sex-workers? Maybe catching male prostitutes is not fun enough for our he-man cops?

Also, why aren’t our policewomen pretending to be customers of masseurs-cum-gigolos and arresting them when they offer sex?

Gender equality should also extend to the way sex-workers are handled by the police.

Definitely an alpha minded type writer, ladies look no further for an example of alpha minded MALE, (guys – here’s that role model missing from society or your henpecked home conditions), though does not look particularly alpha, (well maybe was much bigger/muscular/hairier when younger . . . ) all Ewe needs is to have a music production business on the side and to put on that shiny suit, give Dr. Detroit a run for the money . . . Ah the era of wine, women and song for non-Muslims in Malaysia can begin if alpha males finally legislate legalized RLDs or adult (film) industry . . . run for candidacy in the informal RLD districts in Malaysia, the syndicates would be glad to become legal and have access to legal workers with the adult patrons having access to legal workers as well as the sex workers possibly being able to demand a pension plan as well, instead of running around playing catch with the cops.

Ewe Paik Leong is a Kuala Lumpur-based writer and editor. He has held editorial positions in publications ranging in subjects from lifestyle, travel, business, building, healthcare and medical to motoring. Ewe is a member of the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association, Diamond Bar, CA, USA. All articles are original and cannot be reproduced without his written permission.

ARTICLE 3

Lady Gaga rushed by fan, fires back at PETA over furs: Footage released – August 17, 2012 – by : Bryan Bard

Lady Gaga comes to Kim’s defense, tells PETA and the world she thinks she’s fabulous.

Lady Gaga is currently touring Romania, and the fur is flying. Yesterday the “Born this Way” diva issued a pointed response to the commotion over her suspected fur wearing. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has lashed out at Gaga for appearing in public sporting what appear to be real animal furs. And amid all of this controversy came an aggressive fan who got an up close view of the business end of Lady Gaga’s body guard.

Celebrity-Gossip.net is reporting that upon arriving at her hotel in Bucharest yesterday and greeting fans, one overzealous photographer attempted to shoot up Gaga’s skirt. This was met with a swift response from her security team who seized the camera. Later as Lady Gaga was exiting, another commotion erupted when what appears to be an overanxious fan rushed the “Bad Romance” singer for an autograph and was met with a quick smack down by a bodyguard. Watch the video here as posted by Eonline to see it as it happened.
Lady Gaga bodyguard slaps down fan

Earlier in the week, PETA attacked Mother Monster and called her a “turncoat” for appearing in public with various furs, and demanded to know whether any were real. Typical of our Gaga, she released a statement defending her right to do and wear what she wants, as reported by The Hollywood Gossip. PETA claims Gaga has said in the past that she hates fur and doesn’t wear it. It’s unclear whether she’s referring to real fur or just fur in general. In either case, the 26 year-old artist is not backing down to pressure from the organization nor some of her angered fans.

Lady Gaga’s statement in part says, “I want you to know that I care deeply about your feelings and views, and I will always support your philosophies about life”. She continues, “I do not however support violent, abusive, and childish campaigns for ANY CAUSE. Particularly one that I respect. ‘Animal Rights’….I respect your views, please respect mine”. In between Gaga laments her other animal kingdom fashion-inspired outfits, never explicitly acknowledging whether any of it is authentic or not.

Gaga does make one particularly interesting direct reference to her infamous awards show meat dress. And it does seem odd to hold someone accountable for sporting an animal pelt when they’ve appeared in public wearing animal flesh. It would be an understatement to say that Gaga sees the artistic value in everything. Have you ever gotten past the outrageous costumes and listened to her songs? “You see a carcass, I see a museum piece de resistance”, she wrote.

Lady Gaga closed out her well thought out diatribe by addressing the recent flour bombing of Kim Kardashian by supposed PETA members. “And to campaigners, Save your flour to make bread for the children who are hungry. And Kim Kardashian is fabulous”, Gaga said.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

“I do not however support violent, abusive, and childish campaigns for ANY CAUSE.” said Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotti aka Lady Gaga.

Oh yeah? USA and the freedom of humanity by attempting to remove bad politicians or the TSA, if considered childish (moi prefers childlike in descripts of campaigns, and selfishness especially when one has so much, is most cynically adult) or abusive to campaign for, would only make this 1%ter part of the problem. The only way Evil can win is if Good does not act. So by not acting, guess what Evil any 1% entertainer is allowing to happen . . . by ignoring the starving, those needing policy change, stuck in prisons for non-crimes (that a governor could pardon or influence placement of pro-active judges who could overturn judgments by), needing younger politicians in power, when one has as much (though likely waning after this post) popularity and money as this that is put to no good end, one has already done violence by letting the abuse to the 99%ters occur without helping the 99% even as the 99% had bought tickets and albums etc.. to enable action by 1% plutocrat actors and musos. Is this childish?

Or will 1% plutocrat entertainers continue neglecting the fact that the 99% made them and now are suffering, need this 1% plutocrat to act for them now? Every ticket or album bought comes with a price and the spiritual debt is now upon those who due to the collective resources of so many can act but do not . . . despots like people who concur all the time, by saying this and thinking this way, 1% plutocrat entertainers will be now differentiate those who are followers or potential friends . . . shall the world divest from those who fail to return what was given rather than earned? A record or ticket does not sell itself and is not a one off thing either.

Field an ENTIRE ‘Freedom Party’ who will legalise pot and free all prisoners of pot related charges if TSA seems too much for ‘Gaga’ Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotti, set a precedent for action or set a precedent for plutocratic entertainer divestment . . . THAT would be ‘monster-worthy’. A 3rd Force political coalition instead of the hegelian dialectic. A monster would take on the creeps and retards running the government because monsters also hunger for power . . . prancing around naked with lights and props is NOT so monstrous as making a run for Governorship to implement REAL laws, abolish REAL laws or pardon non-crimes . . . oh and that ‘fan‘ who was ‘bashed’ by the guard . . . unless staged on purpose to create ‘drama’, this looks like an undue force amounting to Aggravated Assault case involving security at least, would ‘fan’ like to consult a lawyer if being hit in that manner was legal? How about something sexier where the fur wearing people get their furry clothes ripped off by fundos among PETA?

A group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives is set to launch a media campaign, including TV ads, that scolds President Barack Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and argues that high-level leaks are endangering American lives.

Leaders of the group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, say it is nonpartisan and unconnected to any political party or presidential campaign. It is registered as a so-called social welfare group, which means its primary purpose is to further the common good and its political activities should be secondary.

In the past, military exploits have been turned against presidential candidates by outside groups, most famously the Swift Boat ads in 2004 that questioned Democratic nominee John Kerry’s Vietnam War service.

The OPSEC group says it is not political and aims to save American lives. Its first public salvo is a 22-minute film that includes criticism of Obama and his administration. The film, to be released on Wednesday, was seen in advance by Reuters.

“Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not,” Ben Smith, identified as a Navy SEAL, says in the film.

“As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy,” Smith continues. “It will get Americans killed.”

An Obama campaign official said: “No one in this group is in a position to speak with any authority on these issues and on what impact these leaks might have, and it’s clear they’ve resorted to making things up for purely political reasons.”

Obama has highlighted his foreign policy record on the campaign trail, emphasizing how he presided over the killing of bin Laden, as well as how he ended the war in Iraq and set a timeline for winding down the war in Afghanistan.

However, Obama has come under sharp attack from Republican lawmakers who have accused his administration of being behind high-level leaks of classified information.

They have pointed to media reports about clandestine drone attacks, informants planted in al Qaeda affiliates and alleged cyber-warfare against Iran that Republicans say were calculated to promote Obama’s image as a strong leader in an election year.

The White House has denied leaking classified information.

The president of Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, Scott Taylor, is a former Navy SEAL who in 2010 ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat in Virginia.

Calling itself “OPSEC” for short – which in spy jargon means “operational security” – the anti-leak group incorporated last June in Delaware, a state that has the most secretive corporate registration rules in the U.S.

It also set itself up as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)4 of the U.S. Tax Code, allowing it to keep donors’ identities secret. Spokesmen for the group declined to discuss its sources of financing.

Several group representatives say their main motivation for setting up OPSEC was dismay at recent detailed media leaks about sensitive operations.

In an interview, Taylor denied OPSEC had any political slant. He described the group as a “watchdog organization” but added that the current administration “has certainly leaked more than others.”

OPSEC spokesmen said the group has about $1 million at its disposal and hopes to raise more after the release of its mini-documentary, entitled “Dishonorable Disclosures,” which aims, in spy-movie style, to document a recent spate of leaks regarding sensitive intelligence and military operations.

Following the film’s release, OPSEC’s spokesmen said, the group expects to produce TV spots on the anti-leak theme that will air in a number of states, including Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada – key battleground states.

Fred Rustmann, a former undercover case officer for the CIA who is a spokesman for the group, insisted its focus on leaks was “not a partisan concern.” But he said the current administration had been leaking secrets “to help this guy get re-elected, at the expense of peoples’ lives…. We want to see that they don’t do this again.”

Chad Kolton, a former spokesman for the office of Director of National Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration who now represents OPSEC, also said the group’s message and make-up are nonpolitical.

“You’ll see throughout the film that concern about protecting the lives of intelligence and Special Forces officers takes precedence over partisanship,” he said.

Responding to criticism about the president taking credit for the bin Laden raid, an Obama campaign official pointed to an interview with CNN last month in which Admiral Bill McRaven, commander of the raid, said: “At the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the president of the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that made the hard decisions, that was instrumental in the planning process, because I pitched every plan to him.”

“I think Admiral McRaven knows more about the President’s role in the bin Laden operation than this group,” the campaign official said.

Thats is why term limits are needed. So that the office cannot be used to protect this sort of credit claiming. Would a black or latino female president or Ameri-Red-Indian male be suitable for USA in the next election? Would give a strong message to the militant Islamists that USA is not all WASP and that the citizens are not all colonial occupiers but victims of the same.

Joe Publics of the above 3 types of President selections with enough resources to at least launch internet campaigns, you ready to run for President? Romney is worth 250 million, Maria Carey is worth 225 million, how about running for Governor at least? Oprah is worth 2.7 billion 10 times that of Romney, Madonna is worth 500 million 2 times that if Romney, how about running for Governor at least if not President divas? Beyonce’s networth as of February 2010 is $461 million & Jay Z’s net worth as of January 2010 is $785million, Snoop Lion’s worth 110 million still enough to at least take a Congressman’s or Mayor’s seat if wealth is to be a yardstick of what one can do. On the wealth distribution, if at very least not unused LAND distribution for the homeless and jobless at least? If Arnold Schwarzeneggar (terminated California policy for 9 years, not so good), could take up politics, why is the latino or black entertainer so shy? USA needs a new governance paradigm or USA is going down . . . Hollywood included . . .

If these people are so proud of ethnicity or gender equality have the media infrastructure, want to prove themselves so much, then run for the above posts and GTFO of Congress after 2 terms! USA’s 99?% need these policies that the mainstream term limitless do not want to implement! All that is needed to evil to triumph is for good to do nothing . . .

The DeKalb County medical examiner says a woman found dead in her home was killed by at least one of her five dogs.

Twenty-three-year-old Rebecca Carey spent her life rescuing animals, taking several into her home to keep them from ending up at animal control.

Carey’s best friend, Jackie Cira, went to Carey’s home when she did not show up for work on Sunday.

“There was a lot of blood,” Cira said. “And when first got there, it looked like she had fallen and hit her head.”

The DeKalb County medical examiner ruled Carey’s death was the result of dog bites.

Animal control took custody of the five dogs in the home – two pit bulls, two presas and a boxer mix.

Any dog that has bitten a person goes into a special isolation lockup at animal control.

Cira said she knows Carey’s dogs, and actually owned one of them, a therapy dog, at one time.

“Any dog she came into contact with, she brought out the best in,” Cira said.

Cira said she wanted the dogs she knew to be gentle to be spared punishment.

“I don’t know who did what, but I can say with certainty who did not,” Cira said.

Animal control’s interim director Tim Medlin told Channel 2’s Jeff Dore that the county can’t risk putting a killer dog with a family, and they have all been put down.

“We didn’t know which dog did which. I can’t be wrong. Not just myself, no one can be wrong in putting out a dog that possibly had to do with these type of injuries. I will not put another person at that kind of risk,” Medlin said.

Carey’s family declined to speak with Dore, but they issued the following statement:

“Rebecca Carey of Decatur was 23 years old and an avid animal lover. Since the second grade when she read the book Throw Away Pets she vowed to be a voice for all animals. She attended Georgia Perimeter College and worked at a veterinary clinic. Upon placing her first abandoned animal in a permanent loving home in 2003, she volunteered countless hours with rescue networks and animal shelters. There she did what she loved the most: rescuing animals from untenable situations to find them safe, loving homes.”

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Neurotech warning? For we know our pets well and fine excepting neurotech incursions . . . Don’t be afraid plutocrat entertainers, back up those attitudes with real action not entertainment industry slickness. Is Hollywood ‘in’ with the neurotech use? Guess who Carey is warning if this is even possible. Otherwise disregard this post. That would also confirm that some Hollywood types are just false personaes under the spotlight, but even worse than politicians IRL away from the spotlight. Perhaps this is why some of them are so wealthy and dismissive or neglectful of the 99% who buy their records/products etc. and make them so rich. As mentioned before – wealth distribution is needed (20 million limits?) not 1% domination EVEN by entertainer plutocrats. Making life entertaining is no excuse for sequestration of collective wealth of the nation when people starve or are homeless.

Any able to confirm the above deserve to be the intelligence community or watchdogs of the 99% . . . a really cool star would be cool with most of what is posted here, the ‘closet psycho’ NWO types entertainers for certain would pull something like the above. Don’t say I didn’t warn you AmeriCan’ts, not all ‘Stars’ may be as friendly or entertaining as they seem, and might have access to satellite neurotech if not trying to sequester organic energy exchanges naturally available to others, on the esoteric level there seems to be a spiritual war all around . . .

Lets hope some of these plutocrat entertainers actually act or debunk. USA is fighting a war that USA cannot fund, and when there are no monies for police because soldiers are protecting the USA, fully expect even entertainer plutocrats to be considered part of the problem. We only ask for those the 1% entertainer made so wealthy by buying their records or watching their films to give back by taking out the evil term limitless politicians and remembering to GTFO after 2 terms. After gaining the cash from the film goers, Arnold S. JOINED the 1% (just look at the policy written) . . . now will the rest of the 1% entertainers help the 99% who made the plutocrat (1% entertainer/muso funded by the people of the USA, also world) so wealthy?

A woman may be fined $600 for each day she provided free food to children in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood for the past few months.

Angela Prattis, 41, of Chester Township has been distributing free healthy lunches in a neighborhood that has a per capita income of $19,000 a year.

Prattis made no money from the meal distribution, and gave out food provided by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The “lunch lady” ran the charity out of her garage, to which about 60 children came, five days a week.

After the city council was alerted of the free lunches, it ruled that she would have to acquire a variance to give away food next summer – or pay a fine of $600 a day. The council considers Prattis’ deed a zoning violation. Three months of distributing food would instigate a fine of more than $50,000.

“It’s not like I’m selling food,” she objected.

“These kids are hungry. I’m not tearing down the community. I’m keeping the children out of harm’s way,” she said in a Fox News interview.

But a variance to distribute food would also be costly. Administrative fees for a variance would cost up to $1,000.

“You have houses here. The roofs are falling in, and they could be focused on a lot more serious issues than me feeding children,” Prattis said in response to the city council’s ruling.

The woman has three children of her own, takes care of a foster child and runs a neighborhood basketball program .

The township intitally threatened Prattis with fines for this summer’s food distribution, but withdrew them after news organizations began asking questions. Now, the township is allowing the woman to keep distributing food cost-free until August 24 – but next summer will be a lot more costly. Prattis told local news crews that she will continue helping her community.

“Tell me this program isn’t needed,” she said.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Whats the back story behind this? Neurosuppressive drugs distributed by the Church into the food to control children? With enforcement taking the fall to keep the Church looking good?

ARTICLE 7

How America Can Slow Israel’s March to War – by DENNIS B. ROSS – Published: August 17, 2012 Washington

For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.

OBAMA administration officials have made it clear that they believe there is still time and space for diplomatic efforts to succeed in stopping Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability. But Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, has said it is time to declare that “diplomacy has failed.”

While Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not yet declared the failure of diplomacy, he has spoken about its inability to alter the course of Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, he has told his cabinet that the nuclear threat from Iran dwarfs all the other threats Israel faces and pointedly added, “Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.”

The words of Israeli leaders are signaling not just increasing impatience with the pace of diplomacy but also Israel’s growing readiness to act militarily on its own against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Although the United States and Israel share the same objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability, the two differ on the point at which it may become necessary to act militarily to forestall the Iranian nuclear advance. I say “forestall” because neither America nor Israel can fully destroy the Iranian capability to build a nuclear weapon. Each country could set Iran back militarily, but neither could destroy Iran’s skill or technical and engineering capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Since 2007, when Iran mastered the full nuclear fuel cycle and the means to enrich uranium on its own, it has been too late for that.

Their differences on the possible timing of military action are a function of both capabilities and perspective. The United States has significantly greater military might than Israel and therefore feels that it can wait substantially longer than Israel before resorting to force.

Israel is less patient. As Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said, Iran is rapidly approaching the moment when the depth, breadth and hardening of its multiple nuclear facilities would produce a “zone of immunity” in which an Israeli military strike would lose its effectiveness. Mr. Barak believes that Israel must act before that moment.

But the issue for the United States is not only about military capacity. It is also about having a strategy for the aftermath of any strike on Iran. Because force could not destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, military action must be seen as a means and not an end. And it must be employed in a way that would contribute to the objective of setting back the Iranian nuclear program so that Iran is both less able and less willing to reconstitute it. At a minimum, that would require keeping Iran isolated and under severe economic sanctions after its nuclear facilities had been attacked.

Israel surely recognizes the importance of having a post-strike strategy that could succeed in keeping Iran isolated. But, perhaps because Israeli leaders find it difficult to surrender the military option while still facing what they perceive as an existential threat, they tend to believe that Tehran’s behavior will produce a unified international position against Iran, even after a military strike.

In the words of one senior Israeli official: “The sanctions regime may be hurt for a time, but afterward it will recover, as will the diplomatic pressure on Iran, as will the intelligence battle against Iran. This is because the basic interests of the international community regarding Iran will not change.”

The perspective of the Obama administration is different. From its standpoint, the isolation of Iran did not just happen on its own. It took considerable effort to persuade and mobilize the international community to impose crippling sanctions.

For the United States, this context matters. America thinks in terms of shaping an international environment so that if force becomes necessary it can be justified because diplomacy has been demonstrably exhausted and Iran, by stubbornly refusing to alter its nuclear program, will appear to have essentially brought war on itself. Preserving Iran’s isolation in the event of a military strike will require denying Iran the ability to present itself as the victim.

In other words, before a military strike, it is essential to demonstrate that Iran was not prepared to accept a civil nuclear power capability with the kind of limitations that would prevent it from being able to produce nuclear weapons on short notice.

Israeli leaders wouldn’t dispute the desirability of showing that diplomacy — and the use of crippling sanctions — had failed to change Iran’s behavior. But Israelis clearly fear that their clock will run out on them and that Israel, in the words of that senior official, “will no longer be a player at that point.”

The key questions for policy makers in Washington today are whether there is a way to extend the clock from an Israeli standpoint and whether it is possible to synchronize the American and Israeli clocks so that we really can exhaust diplomacy and sanctions before resorting to force. Four actions by the United States could make this possible.

First, the United States must put an endgame proposal on the table that would allow Iran to have civil nuclear power but with restrictions that would preclude it from having a breakout nuclear capability — the ability to weaponize its nuclear program rapidly at a time of Tehran’s choosing. Making such a proposal would clarify whether a genuine deal was possible and would convey to Israel that the American approach to negotiations was not open-ended.

Second, America should begin discussions with the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (the so called P5+1) about a “day after” strategy in the event that diplomacy fails and force is used. This would signal to both Israel and Iran that we mean what we say about all options being on the table.

Third, senior American officials should ask Israeli leaders if there are military capabilities we could provide them with — like additional bunker-busting bombs, tankers for refueling aircraft and targeting information — that would extend the clock for them.

And finally, the White House should ask Mr. Netanyahu what sort of support he would need from the United States if he chose to use force — for example, resupply of weapons, munitions, spare parts, military and diplomatic backing, and help in terms of dealing with unexpected contingencies. The United States should be prepared to make firm commitments in all these areas now in return for Israel’s agreement to postpone any attack until next year — a delay that could be used to exhaust diplomatic options and lay the groundwork for military action if diplomacy failed.

Although some may argue that these actions will make a military strike more likely next year, they are almost certainly needed now in order to give Israel’s leaders a reason to wait.

Dennis B. Ross, a former State Department and National Security Council official, was a special assistant to President Obama for the Middle East and South Asia from 2009 to 2011. He is now a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Israel is less patient but only has a M.A.D. capacity without conventional or sufficient troops to control anything more than a large city at most. Without USA in full force, which will at this point indebt USA into insolvency unless fiat is going to be dropped after the war, there is no way Iran can be taken out AND controlled. Look at Iraq and the USA’s failure to ‘control’ the region. Or even supposedly low tech Afghanistan and Pakistan. USA should turn Iraq into a Japan with a permanent troop presence THEN consider Iran, otherwise no go. If Iran is twice as problematic as Iraq having twice as many citizens, even with USA and Israel in permanent occupation, and likely USA facing retaliatory bullying and even attempts at control by Russia (for the loss of the Soviet Union), Israel will either have to conduct a spiritually damning several decades long pogrom of Iranian citizens (that the USA had no capacity nor stomach nor ability to face the world later for) that would galvanise the entire Middle East region into WW3 and endless terror attacks everywhere . . . the MAD scenario solution is not capacity for combat or capacity for victory, and Iran will most certainly have nuclear weapons even as Pakistan does, yet does not destroy India (and Pakistan also) simply because of the fallout. There are many ways to win a war, and hearts and minds wise Iran is still somewhat crushed and hated, but take the war and occupation method, and Israel signs a death warrant. No country can stop a nation with the size and population of Iran from gaining nukes, Israel must conduct other types of warfare.

If Iran uses the direct conventional method even without Nukes, and Israel lacking manpower will be no more. If USA managed to CONTROL Iraq as colony without issue, PERHAPS, but if USA is unable to pull that off, that means conventional is off the table when 25% of Iran’s population does a ‘Zerg-rush’ on Israel. M.A.D. of course is a world irradiating non-solution that is not victory. Israeli citizens opposing are showing wisdom.

Perhaps Israel can cause insurgencies and rebellions but not use M.A.D. or occupations. Perhaps direct an asteroid at Iran from space at most. False flag an alien invasion with extreme conventional tech. Mind control satellites? 75 million nanomites with cyanide injectibles could work but that would be too obvious but would be as impressive though not as dramatic as air craft carriers in 1940s, and spiritually damning as hell. The future of war looks set to be nanoscale at least until nanoscale cleaners are employable. Doubtless the ‘grey goo’ scenario could create another MAD scenario as well. How about for now those who cannot get along just build a very big wall and not trade or communicate? Much easier and less problematic. Any power which needs to use nukes has already admitted defeat, and will also irradiate the world in the process. Real war needs conventional troops and ability to occupy. Israel has neither and USA should consolidate control in Iraq instead of starting a war with Iran which looks several times tougher than Iraq.

Left-wing Israelis protest in Tel Aviv on August 16, 2012, against Israel mounting a military strike on Iran. (AFP Photo/Menahem Kahana)

Tel Aviv’s bellicose stance against Iran’s nuclear program has sparked a pushback in Israeli society against politicians’ ambitions to strike Iran, with many demanding a peaceful resolution to tensions.

­More than 400 Israelis, including prominent academics, have signed an online petition appealing to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pilots not to obey hypothetical orders to bomb Iran.

The petition was initiated by Vardit Shalfi, a left-wing activist and editor of online magazine The Occupation, who said that there are many public campaigns against a war with Iran, but “none of them appealed to the executive level, the pilots.” The document calls a possible military strike on Iran a “highly mistaken gamble” that would come “at an exorbitant price,” and would not halt Iran’s nuclear program.

“You have the option of saying ‘No,’” the petition addressed to the pilots reads, according to Haaretz. “Certainly, this is not a simple option. It involves profound professional and moral dilemmas, and carries the risk of losing a career which is important to you and also the possibility of being prosecuted. Nevertheless, it is your duty to consider most carefully and seriously the possibility that by saying the little word ‘No,’ you will be rendering an important and vital service to the State of Israel and all who live here. This service would be infinitely more important than blind obedience to this particular order.”

The petition also warns of legal responsibility for the potential consequence of strikes against atomic facilities: “Israel as a country, as well as those carrying out the bombing might be charged with war crimes.”

Law professor Chaim Gans of Tel Aviv University argues that such military action would be illegal, and that “it is clear that the consequences of such a war would be destructive in every possible way.”

Some say that the strike could be legal, but still cause serious blowback. “There is no legal problem with striking Iran,” petitioner and Tel Aviv University law professor Menachem Mautner said, but he warned of the possibility of “very serious and far-reaching consequences” for Israel if it attacks Iran without US backing.

Similar petitions have also been circulated among Israeli society. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak outlining their fears about the consequences of a potential attack: “We will be the ones you will seek out to heal and put together what you have broken. We call on you: Don’t break. First do no harm,” Iranian Press TV reported the letter as saying.
Israel readying for war

Israel seems to be preparing for possible military action. A nationwide missile alert system has been tested this week, and gas mask distribution centers have been created across the country. Contractors have also been hired to fortify hospitals, schools and shelters, the AP reported.

Tel Aviv has engaged in long-running diplomatic appeals to halt or slow Iran’s nuclear program. They insist that Tehran is working to develop nuclear weapons, while the Iranian government claims their program is for civilian purposes.

Tel Aviv has repeatedly warned in the past few months that the window of opportunity for military action is narrowing, claiming that economic sanctions are incapable of stopping Tehran from acquiring the alleged nuclear weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have implied that an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be launched in the fall, before the US presidential election in November.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main goal in this crisis is delaying Tehran’s nuclear program by a few years, even if Israel cannot entirely halt Iran’s nuclear program, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a speech today to the Israeli Parliament that taking action against Iran was “not simple, without risks or unintended consequences … I believe that it is inestimably more complicated, inestimably more dangerous, inestimably more complex, and inestimably more expensive in terms of human life and resources to deal with a nuclear Iran in the future.”

On Sunday, an anonymous senior Israeli politician (believed by the media to be Ehud Barak) said that Israel had already decided to act alone, the National Post reported. “We can’t wait to find out one morning that we relied on the Americans but were fooled because the Americans didn’t act. Israel is strong and Israel is responsible, and will do what it has to do,” the official said.

Tel Aviv has openly stated that it is prepared to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
A history of pre-emptive action

IDF forces carried out similar missions in 1981 and 2007, when they attacked unfinished nuclear reactors in Iraq and Syria.

Israeli President Shimon Peres challenged the prospect of a unilateral, pre-emptive Israeli strike in a televised address, saying that “Now, it’s clear to us that we can’t do it alone. We can delay. It’s clear to us we have to proceed together with America. There are questions about coordination and timing, but as serious as the danger is, this time at least we are not alone.”

Other prominent Israeli politicians also oppose Israel making unilateral strikes. Recently-resigned Kadima leader Tzipi Livni announced in May that Netanyahu is threatening the existence of the Jewish state with its hawkish stance against Iran.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also spoke out against the bellicose rhetoric, saying that “There is no reason at this time not to talk about a military effort, but definitely not to initiate an Israeli military strike.”

Washington has warned Israel on numerous occasions against premature action, insisting that time needs to be allowed for diplomacy and sanctions against Tehran to work. On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that military action against Tehran should be a “last resort.”

Panetta made some of his strongest comments yet on curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions during a visit to Jerusalem earlier this month: “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Period,” he told reporters.

Only 22 percent of Israelis believe Panetta’s statement, according to an August 8 poll by the Dahaf Institute.

The survey also showed that a majority of Israelis believe that a nuclear Iran would pose a threat to Israel, and most say that Israel needs US assistance to stop Tehran’s nuclear program. Some 61 percent of Israelis believe Iran should not be attacked without consent from the US.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Israel’s barely 8 million of which for certain only 30% or less (children or elderly, non-combat civilians etc..) which are combat ready cannot take on Iran without the USA. If Iran is willing to suffer the pain, Iran could well overrun Israel before the USA gets there. Then the world will have less one aware bulwark against militant Islamists without Israel. If Iran strikes with nukes, Iran will also suffer radioactive fallout. Same with Israel using nukes. The Middles East loses out either way. Israel really should leave Lebanon alone meanwhile and help USA consolidate Iraq.

That was the response Friday from the Romney team after Obama’s campaign manager tried once again to wrench more tax documents from the Republican president candidate, this time by offering to refrain from criticizing Mitt Romney’s transparency if he agrees to release five more years of returns.

“Thanks for the note. It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending,” he wrote. “If Governor Romney’s tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for President Obama to discuss them over the next 81 days.”

The Obama campaign offer came after Romney said a day earlier that he’s “never paid less than 13 percent” in taxes over the last 10 years.

Messina, pressing Romney once again for documentation, wrote that he wanted to offer “assurances” to allay Romney’s concerns that releasing additional tax returns would just feed the Democrats’ appetite for more.

“So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign,” Messina wrote.

Messina, notably, did not offer to refrain from criticizing the contents of whatever documents Romney might furnish.

And that’s the kind of criticism Romney has expressed concern about. Speaking on NBC’s “Rock Center,” wife Ann Romney voiced the same reservations. She said, before Messina’s letter was sent out, that releasing more returns would give Democrats more ammunition, and claimed the campaign would not be releasing more.

Mitt Romney tried to clear the air on Thursday over the issue, offering his most expansive answer yet on the topic while speaking to reporters outside a South Carolina airport.

“I did go back and look at my taxes,” Romney said. “And over the past 10 years, I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 (percent) or something like that.”

Democrats — most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — have hounded him for months over the issue. Reid went so far as to claim on the Senate floor, without offering proof beyond an unnamed source, that Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years, and then challenged Romney to prove him wrong.

Romney says the claim is “totally false.” But Reid and the Obama campaign dug in on their position that it’s Romney’s obligation to prove he paid those taxes — rather than their obligation to prove their charges are true.

Messina wrote in his letter that Romney would “only” have to release three more sets of returns — on top of the 2010 and 2011 returns.

“This request for the release of five years, covering the complete returns for 2007-2012, is surely not unreasonable. Other Presidential candidates have released more, including the Governor’s father who provided 12 years of returns,” he wrote, adding that the campaign is looking for answers on “the range in the effective rates paid, the foreign accounts maintained, the foreign investments made, and the types of tax shelters used.”

He closed: “And, I repeat, the Governor and his campaign can expect in return that we will refrain from questioning whether he has released enough or pressing for more.”

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Why so shifty? If Romney has nothing to hide, releasing tax forms should not be an issue. How can the voters trust a president who cannot even declare tax forms taxes or even assets? Probably there will be details on the tax forms that will confirm CORRUPTION.

While some people think to pack their toiletries in their checked baggage before heading to the airport just in case TSA counts toothpaste as a forbidden fluid, others are busy cramming spear guns, cannonballs, grenade launchers, venomous snakes and eels into their carry-ons.

According to a year-to-date report issued by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), all those things and more have been confiscated so far this year at airport security checkpoints across the country. Some travelers “bring some rather shocking items with them to the airport,” the agency stated in the Aug. 14 report.

[Related: Moscow-bound flight makes unscheduled landing after threat]

While screening more than 375 million people since the start of 2012, TSA agents have found 821 firearms, or an average of four guns per day nationwide. Of the total, 691 guns were loaded. One person attempted to get a gun past security by disassembling it and hiding the pieces in separate stuffed animals, while other travelers tried to hide their pistols in a pot plant and a hollowed-out book. [Are We Safer Today than on 9/11?]

“If the number of firearms we’ve discovered so far this year didn’t shock you, these examples might: a live 40mm high explosive grenade; a bottle wrapped in black electrical tape and filled with flash powder, and three M-80 fireworks; a black powder flask filled with 5oz. of black powder; even an explosively-viable cannonball; and last but not least, a live blasting cap,” TSA wrote.

[Related: Weapons found in two bags at Connecticut airport]

Along with the deadly weapons, agents have also found a lot of other stuff that’s dangerous but also just plain weird. Confiscated items include bear mace in a sock, eels, dead venomous snakes, a grenade launcher and even a gassed-up chainsaw.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Confiscation is as bad as stealing because many items are quite valuable or worth too much to let anyone take them away presumably to profit from. Amend those laws! Don’t they have a weapons locker (which cannot be accessed during flight for obvious reasons) for the weapons, or an accessible pet-cargo area (Eels if for pets . . . ), or a refrigerated storage area (Eels if for food . . . ) for all of the above? Only those who smuggle or try to sneak past could be fined no more than 1% of the value of the item at most. Cannonballs unless by some astral or ethereal or quantum issue that interacts in a negative manner with the equipment, are a non-issue, being harmless even compared to handphones which can have signals that interfere with equipment.

Paul Ryan is taking on the Obama campaign directly over Vice President Biden’s “back in chains” comment, calling them the mark of a “desperate” campaign as President Obama defends his running mate against bipartisan criticism.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Radio, Ryan kept up the new tough tone that Mitt Romney set earlier in the week.

“You know, these are the kinds of things you say when you’re desperate in a campaign,” Ryan said of Biden’s comments. “I think you’re going to hear more of these things as we go on because they have a terrible record and can’t run on it so they’re going to kind of sink this campaign to these low levels to distract people.

“To try and you know, stoke the emotions of fear and envy, and it’s just not going to work. People are going to see through this. We’ve gone from hope and change to anger and division and blame and attack and I think people are going to see through this,” he said.

He also brushed off Sarah Palin’s recent suggestion on Fox News that he drop Biden from the ticket in favor of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and a Fox News contributor, had said Biden’s comments are the latest example of how he “really drags down that ticket.”

Obama, in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” downplayed Palin’s comments.

“We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the chatter and the noise and this and that,” he said. “The country isn’t as divided with gaffes or some stray remark as Washington is. Most folks know that’s just sort of a WWF wrestling part of politics. It doesn’t mean anything, just fills up a lot of air time.”

He also said in an interview with People magazine that Biden’s remarks meant consumers would be worse off if Republicans succeeded in doing away with new restraints on financial institutions.

“In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that,” Obama said.

Hundreds of black people were in the audience when Biden added, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”

In Iowa for a bus tour, Obama said the reaction to Biden’s remarks was a function of politics, but he did not blame his vice president.

“The truth is that during the course of these campaigns, folks like to get obsessed with how something was phrased even if everybody personally understands that’s not how it was meant,” Obama told People. “That’s sort of the nature of modern campaigns and modern coverage of campaigns. But I tell you, when I’m traveling around Iowa, that’s not what’s on people’s minds.”

A prominent Democrat, though, spoke out against Biden’s comments Wednesday. The nation’s first elected black governor, Doug Wilder of Virginia, claimed the comments brought race into the presidential contest.

Romney alluded to Biden’s comment Tuesday evening in delivering a tough critique of the Obama campaign.

“His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency,” Romney told a crowd of thousands at the final stop on his five-state bus tour. “Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower. This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like.”

He continued: “So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.”

“Particularly strange coming at a time when he’s pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Romney has ALL the ethos, components of alpha and cool with an enviable circa 1800s (though somewhat fundo tainted) background lineage to boot, BUT Romney should not be in politics because the policy proposed by Romney kills the 99%. A pillar of society does not mean an ability to ensure good policy writing or an ability to be President. If USA is going to war WITH fat funding in the background, this is the heartless privileged guy who lived well and knew success all his life we all want to be (but obviously cannot . . . USA is overpopulated to disallow this sort of privileged type as the norm, maybe if USA was a population of 3 millions then yes . . . ) to vote for. But right now USA is in shambles economically and Romney can’t be voted now as the 99% and middle class would be wiped out resulting in a failed state. Romney is a SUPERIOR COMPONENT of the USA ‘machine’ (much like ROM chips), but cannot the the CPU.

Only someone bridging the disparate groups and not be so enmired in one group like business to be blind to the middle class and 99%, can do the President’s job. The 1% favouring policy proposed by Romney confirms this. Paul Ryan is the ideological weasel form of Dune’s Attreides hero (even looks abit like the guy, though ‘weaslier’) that may be suitable AGAIN to hammer USA’s enemies with INTERNALLY – BUT USA has not cleared up the mess in the Middle East yet. We might say that Romney is a man before his time . . . perhaps 20 years later when USA has a full wallet AGAIN (not just Romney and the 1% having that full wallet but everyone 99% else) could Romney run, the entire background conditions of the day for Romney’s success in this election look entirely wrong. Unless Romney and the 1% above 50 million all pitch in 70% of their wealth to cancel USA’s debt?

As the system runs now the 99% still are playing with fiat, should the ‘remove fiat’ suggestion be implemented or the fact that ‘there is no such thing as money’ reaches the 99%’s understanding, Romney and 1%’s opportunity for action will be closed forever any ‘electronic wealth’ they hold would be rendered useless, this could happen as soon as after this election if in a majority of congressional seats, Joe Public types come forward to stand and be elected by the 99%. Term limitless oligarchs who have gotten wealthy from corporate raiding like Romney and most of the 1% cannot be allowed to dominate US politics, so what will the 1% do? If the fiat system is to survive, ‘something drastic’ needs to be done, and that means plutocrat 1% types including Romney have to share their wealth with the 99% by cancelling USA’s debt . . .

Spirituality is not material wealth and cannot be shared in the same manner, what one accrues via spirit is not the same as material wealth, but that is for another article to cover . . . vote Joe Public or be Joe Public voters only!

An Auckland man who recorded a probation officer talking about supplying a paedophile with a prostitute dressed like a child says he has no doubt the incident actually happened – and likely more than once. Corrections have launched an investigation into the allegations, saying its first step will be to establish whether the recording was legitimate. A Corrections spokeswoman said the department would complete a review of the officer’s caseload to establish if he had worked with sex offenders, and who and what the statements referred to.

It said it was yet to verify if there was a specific sex offender in question. The investigation was likely to take around two weeks. The probation officer has been suspended while the department investigates. On the recording the officer talks about organising a prostitute for another offender as part of a ”safety plan” to control the offender’s risk. The West Auckland resident, who was also being managed by the man, said he recorded the meeting because he did not like some of the probation officer’s comments. He also took either his mother or father along to the meetings as a support person, because he didn’t want to be alone with the officer.

“It was disgusting. He was definitely talking about a specific sex offender, saying ‘I had this plan and this is what we did’.” On the recording the officer talks about the difficulty of managing people on home detention for ”pretty sick crimes” who ”still have a need for, for instance, child sex”. Referring to one case he says: ”I’m not able to supply them with child sex but we’ve worked out a plan where, hey, we’ll go out to get a prostitute who comes to the house and she dresses up as a child.”

The officer says it hasn’t stopped the offender’s urges but stopped him having to ”grab someone off the street”.

He then says: “It’s difficult talking about a chap who sits there in the lounge [and] gets sexually excited when the girls walk past going to school.

”That’s what we’ve had to do, and because of that help they’re kinda safe.”

The officer goes on to say the safety plan allows the child sex offender to integrate into the community.

”Instead of snatching someone or lurking in the bushes or progressing into something that could possibly put him into trouble he knows, he rings, happy fun times and she comes over, dresses up, does her bit and the pressure’s gone. He’s OK.”

There are 39 offenders in West Auckland who are managed by community probation services for sexual offences.

Corrections Department acting regional manager Alastair Riach earlier said the department did not provide or pay for the provision of prostitutes to any offenders.

”We aim to keep the public safe by working with offenders to change their behaviour associated with their risk of reoffending, and to develop a lifestyle that helps them to maintain these changes.”

Follow @AucklandNowNZ

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Exactly as envisioned. This is how society should deal with such proclivities. Put enough people in the right context and same place, and this becomes a rather dull subculture for those not interested. Civilisation means being able to do this. Being fundo means honor killings on either side, bloody tribal feuds or for Capitalists, psychiatric establishment drug sales or asylums (in the worst places of the fundo world also ‘Religious Correction Centres’), higly profiteering jail terms and jail contractors for so called crimes like smoking pot or being LGBT. Seems like the world needs to look at New Zealand for pointers on how to do this.

Very sex positive and instead of criminals, we get another facet of adult industry with taxpaying consumers. In the Universe of course, stranger things have happened than a supposed pimp dressing up a consensual and aware woman willling to ensure paedophiles keep their preferences in proper context. So who needs to chemically castrate or imprison or even persecute . . . so first, set up the socio-psychological infrastructure in the form of fetish clubs catering to whatever in adult districts. That as we all know is impossible for FUNDO societies and also Uncontrolled/Unlimited Capitalist societies . . . http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gendersexuality/tp/History-of-Prostitution.htm

ARTICLE 13

Pussy Riot to grace Playboy? – Published: 15 August, 2012, 13:50

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikovas (RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin)

Ukraine’s edition of Playboy is considering having one of the arrested Pussy Riot punk band members star on the magazine’s cover.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, the youngest of the three girls awaiting a verdict in the Pussy Riot trial may appear on the cover, if the Moscow court sets the girls free.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alehina, 24, and Ekaterina Samutsevich, 29, are charged with hooliganism after the band rushed into Russia’s main church and performed what is described as a “punk prayer” calling on Mother Mary to drive Putin away. The prosecutors want the girls jailed for three years. The verdict will be delivered on Friday August 17.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Vlad Ivanenko told Izvestia daily that Playboy had already contacted Tolokonnikova’s representatives with the offer to arrange a photo shoot. Talks are currently suspended awaiting the court decision.

“Our magazine readers are active social networks users, where Pussy Riot girls have become the main trend over the past months,” Ivanenko said. “We see Nadezhda Tolokonnikova as an art-activist and believe that our readers will be enthused with her appearance on the cover,” he said adding that his deputy “dreams of marrying Nadezhda.”

Tolokonnikova is not new to getting undressed for public. In 2008 she and her husband Pyotr Verzilov were involved in an event including group sex filmed in Moscow’s Museum of Biology. Tolokonnikova was 18 and nine months pregnant. The footage was later posted on the Internet.

Pussy Riot has gained massive global support. Friday will see rallies for the feminist punk band members in at least two dozen cities around the world. Simultaneous demos will be held an hour before a Russian court gives its decision.

Many celebrities, such as Bjork, Madonna, The Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Terry Gilliam, Yoko Ono, and members of The Who and The Pet Shop Boys have spoken out for the girls.

The three girls on trial have already spent over five months in prison.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Only porn could defuse b.s. like this. Without porn, where would civilisation be?

1.4 million part-time workers say they are doing it because they simply can’t get full-time work
Some can’t afford to retire so work a few days a week
Overall unemployment is down 46,000 to 2.56 million in the last three months
Many more jobs in London because of Olympics, so unemployment could rise again after summer

Record numbers of Britons are working part-time after those struggling to find full-time positions pushed the figure above the eight-million mark for the first time.

Official figures show that 8.07 million people toil for fewer than 25 hours a week – the highest figure since records began in 1992.

One in seven of them would like to work longer but can’t find the job, while others only remain in part-time employment because they can’t afford to retire.

The grim figures came amid warnings that the so-called ‘Olympic effect’ – which has helped overall unemployment fall in recent months – will end after the summer.

Union bosses said the booming numbers of part-time workers only reflected soaring levels ‘despair and waste of human talent’ and they called for George Osborne to be axed as Chancellor.

Boost: Many people are taking part time jobs in supermarkets, shops and offices because they cannot get full time work

However, the Government has trumpetted the fact that overall unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for a year after a big jump in the number of people in work.

The jobless total fell by 46,000 in the quarter to June to 2.56 million, an unemployment rate of 8 per cent, according to the office for national statistics.

The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance last month was 1.59 million, down by 5,900 on June.

Most of the quarterly fall in unemployment was recorded in London, suggesting a big jobs boost from the Olympic Games that could go the other way after the summer ends.

Bosses hire hard-working foreigners because British youth are ‘lazy’, employers’ group warns

Experts are questioning how much the unemployment figures can ‘defy gravity’ at a time when the economy as a whole is contracting.

‘While this is undoubtedly good news, the latest labour markets statistics do raise questions about why they seem so out of kilter with other recent economic data.

‘It is therefore not clear whether these data herald better economic news to come and whether the Olympics can offer a lasting economic legacy.’
London jobs boost: Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for a year, an improvement thought to be down to the Olympics

London jobs boost: Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for a year, an improvement thought to be down to the Olympics

The number of people in work increased by 201,000 to almost 30 million, the highest since last summer, with half of the rise coming in London.

Average earnings increased by 1.6 per cent in the year to June, up by 0.1 per cent on the previous month.

Youth unemployment – for those between 16 and 25 – remains at just over one million despite figures showing a drop of 4,000.

Union leaders warned that Britain faces an unemployment rise once the Olympic effect has worn off and urged the Government to reverse its cuts plans.

Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB union, said: ‘These figures show the level of despair and waste of human talent in an economy going through this double-dip recession five years on from the credit crunch of 2007.

‘David Cameron and Nick Clegg should now conclude that George Osborne is simply not up to the job of steering our economy and he should be moved to make way for a change of direction as he has proved beyond doubt that it is not possible to deflate your way to growth.’

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: ‘This small fall is welcome, but there will be no lasting Olympics legacy in the jobs market.

‘The end of thousands of temporary jobs will see unemployment climbing after the summer.

‘Students waiting for A-level results this week face a bleak jobs future. They are set to join the dole queues in high numbers as the hike in tuition fees has priced many thousands of young people out of their dream of going to university or into further education.

‘The Tories need to inspire a generation by rebuilding our economy and safeguarding the future.
Jobless rate: Two year figures reveal a recent drop to 8 per cent unemployment

‘This must include targeted help for young people, as a part of a wider programme of Government-led job creation. The continued austerity agenda is condemning our economy to the slow lane.’

But Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith suggested that the overall trend in the jobless figures was positive and insisted that the Coalition’s policies were helping to deliver future growth.

He said: ‘These are positive and encouraging figures demonstrating the strength of our private sector – notwithstanding the difficult economic times it is still creating jobs, the vast majority of which are full time. Unemployment is falling and the claimant count is down.’

Unemployment has fallen for five consecutive quarters, while the so-called claimant count was down for the first time since April.

But there was an increase of 1,600 in the number of women claiming jobseeker’s allowance to 530,000, compared with a 7,500 fall among men, to just over a million.

The number of people classed as economically inactive, including those looking after a sick relative, on early retirement, or who have given up looking for work, fell by 117,000 to 9.1 million, just over 22 per cent of the working age population.
Jobs trends: Unemployment and the claimant count over the past two years

Jobs trends: Unemployment and the claimant count over the past two years to the end of June

Around 150,000 people were made redundant in the three months to June, down by 21,000 from the quarter to March and 4,000 lower than a year ago.

There were 472,000 vacancies across the country in the quarter to July, up by 10,000 on the three months to April, and 16,000 more than a year ago.

But not everyone criticised the Government.

Howard Archer, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said: ‘The labour market continues to defy gravity and is performing remarkably well given the extended weakness of the economy.

‘It is very hard to reconcile employment growth of 201,000 in the three months to June, with GDP contraction of 0.7% quarter on quarter in the second quarter, especially as this was a third successive quarter of decline.

‘The implication is that either the economy is doing appreciably better than the national accounts data show, the labour market is doing significantly worse than the hard data show, or productivity has genuinely weakened sharply. The jury is currently very much out as to what the actual answer is but it could very well be a combination of all three.’

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

In objective reality rather than socialised insanity’s outgrowth from civilisation, there were NEVER any such things as jobs or educational institutions, only apprentices and the craftsman manufacturers that weren’t going to take advantage of the 99% blue collars while the white collar management types got peanuts and the board of director CEO types took everything. After the War of Independence, some of the Tories pretended to be Americans who loved democracy so they wouldn’t get lynched for being redcoats. If the hidden Tories still in USA were so democratic they should have by now distributed the land and wealth ESPECIALLY the oil or gold or mineral wealth there and then – as the property of ALL the people, not just for those who happened to be settled there or with land rights, with the Native Ameri-red Indians holding the most rights . . . NOT continue the fiat and feudal tax system which has ballooned to an extreme form this day.

If the 99% knows whats good for them, they will vote only on the above premise and on a pre-vote statuary declaration by the proposed candidate to immediately ratify that bill to implement Socialism with Capitalist Limits immediately once in office AND only the Joe Public types or those millionaires not above 20 million are more likely to accede to the above pre-vote requirement – welcome to the War of Independence 2, this time to OVERHAUL the constitution and wealth distribution paradigm. Within this blog is described exactly what must be done, I haven’t collated the text yet, but distribution of wealth and land is the very first thing to be done. The 1% won’t like what they see but the 99% who are dying of poverty out there will definitely want to vote for that redistribution of land or money and must vote only for non-GLC Joe Public types only.

Being civilised though, USA should allow the 1% types to take out the fiat the 1% think they are entitled to (printing presses go into ooverdrive) THEN switch to PMs and imposed Wealth sequestration limits of 20 million. Those who do not have jobs should work their land, if they innovate, they get rich by patents but limited to 20 million in assets so that the rest goes to others to catch up in quality of life, the ‘trickle down’ effect is a myth, there is none, quality of life for the 99% has never been worse while the 1% never had better.

We will still see innovation AND better distribution of wealth, we don’t need homeless or beggars, nor do we need millions and billions worth plutocrats AND USA will truly belong to everyone (everyone gets a few acres of land USA has 2 billion acres of land – thats 6 acres each (actually every slave was given 40 acres when slavery ended), enough to grow and live off very comfortably unless having many wives or many children by a single wife – this automatically warns against overpopulation, at the same time there will never be a jobs problem again, the food/medicine from the ground/produce if they work the land is FREE (no more food stamps), there will be no homeless (everyone has land to build on, if they work hard they will be able to build palaces), finally MIGRANTS can be invited in to WORK FOR AMERICANS who have land, thereby creating options for EVERYONE as well as bringing in a useful menial class who can be fed and housed to work on manufacturing with materials from the land, and be sent home with some manufactured goods which obviously needs USA to innovate, as any country which adopts the above system will not need to send their people overseas with USA the most likely country able to implement EQUALITY in wealth, land and political power distribution.

The governments that are exploitative intentionally and slow on the implmentation of the above will likely be the countries USA or countries using the above system will get their menial workers from. This also says that free legalized migrants AND overpopulation AND lack of natural resources OR over-militarisation or expenditure on military adventurism will be the killers of any nation. There is no jobs shortage or homelessness or hunger if land and wealth is re-distributed. Try the below redistribution :

All unused land is distributed to all homeless or ‘poor’ then recalculating wealth as follows :

1 billion will be allowed to keep 20 million in PMs, 1 vehicle per family member (carbon footprint reduction is important so few vehicles is better)
100 million will be allowed to keep 2 million in PMs, 2 vehicles per family (carbon footprint reduction is important so few vehicles is better)
10 million will be allowed to keep 200 thousand in PMs, 1 vehicle per family (carbon footprint reduction is important so few vehicles is better)
1 million will be allowed to keep 20 thousand in PMs, 1 vehicle per family (carbon footprint reduction is important so few vehicles is better, who knows those who have caused the least pollution probably have the greatest say . . . )

This may seem extreme but because everyone will be producing food and goods (think 3D printers and DEFLATION due to less zeros held by the richest) will be produced by migrant labour, prices probably will return to 1800 era levels. (i.e. a horse cost $30 silver dollars, today 2010 $2000 therabouts or 60 times. So considering that, all above sums would be 60 times more in liquid asset, with $600K Rolls Royces or Sports Cars costing $10,000, a Fast Food Meal costing 0.99 should be worth 2 cents (0.016 exactly, maybe 3 meals for 0.02 cents – but who needs to pay for food when food is free), an Android phone would cost USD$3.33 . . . so voters please vote properly for a 2 TERM ONLY, Governor or Congressman or President who will do the above and put an end to this useless back and forth . . . as for manufactured goods for locals, ALL workers of any particular manufacturer are entitled to requisition a single unit of that item the factory produces, payment will be CENTS only, so people will work to obtain goods direct or to be exchanged via barter. This is calculated by man hours of work – doubtless a high tech handphone/computer should be worth more man hours than a t-shirt but if wifey at home can knit you a shirt, only the difficult to build items will be worked for (definitely not food or even energy with solar), with MANY people opting out and choosing quality of life instead of being insulted by being on the work line.

Although if the only way to get a tech gadget is by working on the assembly line, for certain the whole idea of work would be that much more meaningful though productivity may not be faster due to retraining etc.. If entirely automated then perhaps a single person could train the next to use the production line machines which does not require much training in reality except for when repairs are needed etc.. Education is not about money but interest in subjects. Jobs are a myth when wealth and land distribution is present.

Remuneration structures linked to short-term performance have created incentives for dishonesty and must be changed

There has been a lot of focus recently on a long and growing list of scandals involving some of the biggest global banks. Barclays has been in the spotlight for manipulating the London inter-bank offered rate and has been fined $460 million by regulators in the United States and United Kingdom.

But Barclays is not alone, the list of other banks involved includes some of the best-known global banks, from Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank to HSBC, RBS and UBS.

In addition, JPMorgan Chase announced a fresh assessment of losses in the trading positions of its London-based unit, which have now been revised upward to $5.8 billion. Meanwhile, HSBC faces the threat of being fined up to $1 billion by the US authorities for allegations of laundering money and financing terrorists, and Standard Chartered has been accused by the US financial watchdog of violating anti-money laundering rules.

It is not surprising that the banking sector, already under attack in the midst of the global financial crisis, has been hit by a new wave of criticism. But most worryingly, trust and confidence in the financial system have reached a record low.

Although there are many reasons why the banking sector collectively has perpetrated so many misdeeds and broken ethical norms, greed is one of the root causes. Therefore, to fix the banking sector requires reshaping its corporate culture.

The values of an organization are shaped by its corporate culture. Of course, any business aimed at maximizing shareholders’ values must strive to make a profit, but the profit-making activities must be legal and morally acceptable. Experience shows that misbehavior in the banking sector often stems from the belief that only bonuses can reward people. Remuneration structures, often linked to short-term performance, have created incentives for dishonesty.

But as Greg Smith, who resigned as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the company’s US equity derivatives business, wrote in an article, “Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs”: “people who care only about making money will not sustain this firm – or the trust of its clients – for very much longer”.

Leadership plays an important role in shaping the culture of a bank. Clearly, the “tone at the top” is a key factor influencing how a bank operates. Moreover, qualified leaders motivate subordinates to work for the good of a bank, not just for themselves. In particular, executives of a bank should have a special responsibility to create an environment where people cannot do bad things. As Bob Diamond, Barclays’ former chief executive, once declared, “the evidence of culture is how people behave when no one is watching”.

Financial regulatory reforms will help banks change their culture. Imposing higher standards of capital adequacy and liquidity management can lower leverage ratios and increase loss-absorbing capabilities, thus reducing the appetite for taking risks and limiting profits in the banking system.

The scandals of the past months may have been a watershed in policymakers’ attitudes toward regulating banking services in many countries. From the Volcker Rule in the US, which prohibits proprietary trading business in banks, to the Vickers Recommendations in the UK, which separate banks’ retail business from their investment business, restrictive measures could force banks to be more transparent and change the incentives driving their behavior. It is important that banks stick to their core mission of supporting the real economy.

Regulators in Western countries should learn from their mistakes. The Financial Service Authority in the United Kingdom has reportedly tracked the price-rigging back to 2005. In April 2008, a Barclay’s employee told an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that the UK bank was deliberately manipulating LIBOR, which was then briefed to the Bank of England and the British Bankers’ Association. But the regulators did not respond quickly and thus missed the opportunity to reform the system.

The effects of these scandals will stretch far beyond developed countries. Chinese banks and regulators must seriously consider how to further promote a healthy corporate culture and enhance the sector’s internal control mechanisms.

Usually, financial crises occur when what was thought to be low risk turns out to be very high risk. For this reason, the banking sector requires special regulation, because its failures have very big economic, political and social fallouts. In this respect, the nation’s top bankers must be accountable and of high integrity, no matter how intensified the competition becomes.

It is understandable that the recent scandals have enraged the public. Nevertheless, it is useless to direct perpetual “blame and shame” at the banks. Instead, the focus should be on how to inspire and encourage banks to fulfill their responsibilities and redefine their culture.

The banking business involves risks and its corporate culture cannot be managed by outside regulation alone. It must be cultivated internally step by step.

Social Security Administration says their request for hollow point bullets is for their staff’s safety

The US Social Security Administration wants Americans to know that they are concerned with the safety of their workers. That is why, they now say, they’ve ordered 174,000 rounds of lethal hollow-point bullets.

Responding to reports centered on the SSA’s recent request for tens of thousands of rounds of high-power, heavy duty ammunition, the agency tasked with assisting the elderly and disabled with federally funded benefit packages has attempted to explain their invitation for ammo makers to make them a deal.

“Our special agents need to be armed and trained appropriately,” a blog post from the SSA office explains. “They not only investigate allegations of Social Security fraud, but they also are called to respond to threats against Social Security offices, employees and customers.

Days after the SSA published a solicitation online for a lot of .357 Duty Carry Sig 125 grain bonded JHP hollow point bullets, the agency says there is nothing especially unusual about their request.

“[O]ur office has criminal investigators, or special agents, who are responsible for investigating violations of the laws that govern SSA’s programs,” the agency explains in the post, published on Thursday. “Currently, about 295 special agents and supervisory special agents work in 66 offices across the United States.These investigators have full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests.”

Responding to the large request of 174,00 rounds, an administrator on the SSA blog writes, “this is a routine procurement that we typically make every fiscal year.”

“We have about 295 criminal investigators who must qualify with a firearm four times per year.If each investigator uses 150 rounds per qualification, then we would need 177,000 rounds per year.This number can vary based on the total number of agents, and any type of specialized training we might undertake. “

In a November 2004 bulletin circulated out of the United States Attorneys’ Office, the government states, “even the slightest error or fraud in the overall process can result in millions of dollars in overpayments or underpayments of Social Security benefits.”

The SSA, contained in a network of over 1,400 offices, is tasked with aiding the elderly, retired, disabled and others, and says on their website, “For the public, we are the ‘face of the government.’”

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

How about NON-LETHAL tranquiliser darts? The state bureaus and state offices are civilian spaces, not slaughter houses. Any offending person should at least be guaranteed their life, passed out for a few hours at most, rather than being killed. Bad choice of weapon! Besides, the dead cannot be interrogated, whats the point of killing potential witnesses or leads into groups that send this sort of person? Civilisation demands at least this much! The American people for certain should concur!

ARTICLE 17

Hebrew Bible: Plagiarized Mythology and Defaced Monotheism

Posted on 21. Aug, 2012 by Dr Ashraf Ezzat in World News
Many are the stories that were told in the Hebrew Bible, but the greatest story that is yet to be told is the story of the Hebrew Bible itself.
Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

The relationship with gods/god has always been one of man’s oldest preoccupations, and still is till this very day. And while it’s fair to assume that Modern day man owes his advancement in philosophy and science to ancient Greece and its earliest thinkers, it’s equally fair, when it comes to the development of religion and the evolution of religious thinking, to give credence to the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

In fact, the earliest vestiges of human faith in God, as we know it today, are to be traced back to the valley of the river Nile and between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. We’re surely to find the root of our belief in a supreme creator inscribed, in hieroglyphs and cuneiform, on the pyramids and papyri of ancient Egypt and on the clay tablets of Sumer … And not within the confines of the Hebrew Bible, as many still believe.

And if we still cherish the Greek school of wisdom and science and continue to build on the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras, I wonder why we stopped honoring the ancient gods of Egypt and Sumer and Babylon.

What has become of the mighty gods of the ancient Near East? What happened to Anu and Enlil, what has become of the beautiful Goddess “Inanna” Ishtar … The one god, Aten, and what happened to the omnipotent Amun/Amen of Thebes? … Amen, whose name is still echoing in every house of prayers of all organized religions on earth?

How come we fail to recall any of the magnificent epics of Sumer (watch video of the epic of Gilgamesh) or the amazing mythology of Egypt (watch video of the Egyptian creation myth) whereas our kids know the stories of the Hebrew Bible by heart?

But then again, if our kids are to be introduced to the myths of ancient Egypt and the epics of Sumer (watch video of the Sumerian creation myth) they won’t feel like they are in a strange land. The stories of Sumer and Egypt will sound so familiar.

“A lot of the stories in the Old Testament are in fact plagiarized material, particularly from the rich mythical heritage of the Sumerians – the inventors of writing. The story of Noah and the flood story, the creation of man out of clay, Cain and Abel, the gardens of Eden, the tree of knowledge, creation of Eve from Adams rib, and numerous other myths, like the throwing of Moses after he was born in the river, are all but stories found recorded on Sumerian clay tablets dating 5000 years back in time.”

… This has long been common knowledge amongst the scholars of history, archeology and anthropology, but I find it extremely necessary today, in the so called information age, to drag it out of the academia realm and expose it in the open before the public eyes.

Why do we remember and celebrate legendary figures like David and Solomon who had no bearing on the human history course, while we hardly recognize the enormous impact historical figures like Akhenaten or Hammurabi had on how we today come to define monotheism and the rule of law. (Watch video of Hammurabi’s code of laws, some of which are echoed in Moses’s commandments)

But then, what do we, men of modern times, know or even care? … We were only told that in the beginning was the word. But according to history … it wasn’t.

In the beginning, was the river – the Nile in Egypt and Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. The river and the profound connection with nature gave the Egyptians and the Sumerians not only the stability and prosperity but also the craving to contemplate the creation of our cosmos and how life on earth came to be.

In other words, the river made the Egyptians and the Sumerians religious, and in a philosophical way. But does that mean that non-agricultural communities were not religious?

To answer that question, we first have to differentiate between religion and rituals. Most primitive communities, e.g., nomadic tribes like the Hebrews, had their local deities, as gods of war and fertility. On the other hand, a religion in ancient Egypt was not a religion of comfort or beneficence. It was an all-embracing doctrine, like a harmony that was observed by all the players in a big philharmonic orchestra. It was a way of life.

These Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions were Mythopoeic. Whereas our world view may be scientific or rational, so we tend to believe, these river civilizations adopted a world view based on myth.

The biggest copyright infringement in history

The stark resemblance between Biblical and Sumerian creation stories poses some serious questions

Now that we know that religion, with colossal temples and ziggurats and creation myths, first sprouted along the fertile banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia and the river Nile in Egypt, how could we explain the dominance of Judaism, some tribal cult which supposedly originated (centuries later in time) amid the arid terrains of Canaan, over the Egyptian and Sumerian once thriving theologies?

Actually Judaism didn’t, surpass the influence of the Egyptian nor the Sumerian theology; this was a formidably hard task for any nomadic community to aspire for, instead Judaism did it the easy way.

As the antiquity era was approaching an end, and as the hieroglyphic and the cuneiform writings were getting extinct, the Hebrews simply stole the Egyptian and the Sumerian thunder. The Hebrew scribes, whom I presume knew what they were doing, copycatted the famous myths/epics of ancient Egypt and Sumer, in what could be the world’s first and yet the biggest copyright infringement, and stuffed their Bible with them.

The Hebrews as nomadic tribes, and later as tradesmen, were always on the move all over the Fertile Crescent that was bounded to the west by Egypt and to the east by Sumer and Babylon (Mesopotamia). Their constant journeys gave them access to the famous epics and stories/myths of the ancient Near East.

When The Hebrew scribes began to write down parts of their old testament/chronicles, which they never imagined, nor planned to be a holy Bible, it was not an overnight job, rather it was a lengthy and interrupted process that may have started around the time of the Assyrian invasion (722 BCE) of the Levant, during which all of Canaan was virtually an Egyptian province, and culminated around the time of the Hellenistic period (332-63 BCE)

Ancient Near East

While geography was the reason behind the development of the brilliant civilizations of both the Egyptians and the Sumerians, it was on the other side, and ironically enough, the main cause for the Hebrews’ misfortune.

Delivered to the savagery of the clans and Squeezed in a land barren and hostile between the ancient superpowers without any chance of military resistance or evolving further beyond the nomadic/unsettled structure, the Jews turned to metaphysics and began to fantasize.

In an atmosphere of despair and rage, especially after the Romans ruthlessly crushed what was seen as the last Hebrew disobedience (66-70 CE) the Jewish religious megalomaniac Messianic fantasies prospered.

The powerlessness of the Jews found an outlet in the myths and invented a glorious national history- something similar to what modern day Zionism did – avenging long years of ostracism and cruelty and dragging their enemy’s names through the dirt.

In the Bible, the Hebrew scribes unleashed the dagger of malevolence and took a stab at the superpowers of the ancient world, namely Egypt, Sumer and Babylon.

Through a prism of total prejudice and deeply seated grudge the Hebrew scribes wrote, page up and page down, not what really happened in ancient times, but rather what they wished had happened.

So, in their scrolls, the Hebrew scribes depicted Babel (Babylon) as the (hot bed of vice) with its tower in ruin, where in reality it stood 90 meters high, and Egypt as the land of slavery and tyranny, devastated by Yahweh’s gruesome punishments in the aftermath of which Egypt’s Pharaoh and his army drowned, where in fact, Egypt stood, for uninterrupted 3000 years, as one of the ancient world’s superpowers.

At that time, something quite weird, that only analytical psychology could explain, started taking place in the Hebrew Bible.

Everything the Israelites desperately longed for, namely a mythology with fascinating stories like that of the Sumerians, a religion with big temples like that of the Egyptians … and yes, a piece of land they could call home like everybody else, the Hebrew scribes made damn sure it was granted to them on the pages of their bible.

And in the process of making up a virtual/counterfactual history for the Israelites, the bible scribes had to simply rewrite the ancient Near Eastern history in a way that would make room for their tribal patriarchs to fit into the story.

Replacing Ziusudra with Noah, Enki with Adam, Sargon of Akkad with Moses and Aten with Yahweh, the Hebrew scribes gave the world one of its most inconsistent and confusing books ever. In a cunning way, the Hebrew scribes, as they wrote down the scripture of their Bible, had plagiarized the ancient Near Eastern wisdom and claimed it theirs.

Copying the ancient and profound Egyptian/Mesopotamian mythology by a bunch of mysterious Hebrew scribes was, from my perspective, the beginning of deterioration of the human religious thinking.
Defaced Monotheism

Unlike the Greek mythology, the ancient Near Eastern mythology was denied, by the demise of the ancient languages and the Hebrew alteration/defacement of its stories the golden opportunity of producing/fostering a European-like renaissance.

The Hebrews, appropriating what otherwise could have stayed as one of the world’s finest myths and theology, have turned it into a completely different thing.

They have molded it into a tribal thing; the universal nature of the Egyptian gods, e.g., Amun, Aten, had been twisted and refashioned to function only as the Hebrews’ own exclusive god, and hence the Hebrews as his own chosen people. And in a way this dominating concept of favoritism/nepotism has, and for the first time in the history of mankind, introduced/nurtured the idea of religious extremism.

Usurping the profound mythology of the ancient Near East by the Israelites, was like snatching the original score of Franz Schubert’s last and unfinished symphony and handing it over to some tribal drum player to finish the job. Need we ponder over the product of such undertaking? … Nothing short of a total catastrophe.

Some will argue that the echoing of the Sumerian and Egyptian myths and beliefs in the Hebrew Bible is but another example of interaction amongst the different cultures of the ancient Fertile Crescent.

“The literature created by the Sumerians left its deep impress on the Hebrews. To be sure, the Sumerians could not have influenced the Hebrews directly, for they had ceased to exist long before the Hebrew people came into existence. But there is little doubt that the Sumerians had deeply influenced the Canaanites, who preceeded the Hebrews in the land that later came to be known as Palestine” pp.143-4, “History Begins at Sumer” Samuel Noah Kramer.

Well, of course the Hebrews/Israelites were influenced by the Mesopotamian literature and the Egyptian Theology, especially that their nomadic origins denied them the luxury of frequenting the colossal temples and serving the mighty gods as those of Egypt and Babylon. But frankly, the Hebrew case was more than just another cultural interaction; it was an act of trespassing.

And even if by time, the Sumerian and Egyptian myths had probably turned into anecdotal tales of the distant past, how could we explain the reason/motive why the names of the main characters were extracted out and replaced by Hebrew counterfeits. … Evenmore, with all the previous presumptions overlooked, how could we forgive the Hebrews’ wickedness of ascribing all this wisdom to their tribal god?

As their scribes were tampering with the history and the mythology of the ancient Near East, and through their ignorance/deceit the Israelites messed up not only with the great stories of Egypt and Sumer but they also damaged the concept of universalism and pluralism that for years underlined the religious thinking of the ancient Near East.

As the Hebrew scribes were tramping over the history of the ancient Near East they rewrote/invented a mythical table of nations (sons of Noah) that, at the end, and through a long cycle of selective favoritism, came down and as expected to favoring the sons of Shem (founding myth of modern day Semitism)

And hence, the world through the tribal lens of the Israelites was only conceivable as Jews vs. Gentiles, This lingering duality complex that denied the Jews, till this very day, the ability to assimilate anywhere outside the psychological orbit of the tribe.

“Jew and Gentile are two worlds, between you Gentiles and us Jews there lies an unbridgeable gulf…There are two life forces in the world: Jewish and Gentile…I do not believe that this primal difference between Gentile and Jew is reconcilable…” – You Gentiles, page 9, by Maurice Samuel

Contrary to what many may believe the Hebrew bible did not come up with the idea of monotheism, the Egyptian king Akhenaten did that and centuries before Judaism, and as a matter of fact YHWH, the Israelites’ one god had a consort by the name ‘Asherah’

On the other hand, the Sumerian and Egyptian pantheon of gods were pyramidal/hierarchal in a way that was always leading to the concept of one and supreme god presiding over the pantheon atop the pyramid – aka Henotheism.

Sigmund Freud

In his famous book, Moses and monotheism, Sigmund Freud concluded that monotheism was not a Jewish but an Egyptian invention, descending from the cult of the Egyptian sun god Aten. Moreover, upon applying his psychoanalysis to the myths/stories of the Hebrew bible, Freud not only argued that Moses was an Egyptian priest but he was also perplexed by how the whole story of Moses/Exodus, according to the oedipal pattern of analysis, was inverted and didn’t make sense the way it had been told. In other words the Hebrew myths/stories didn’t seem original.

Had he lived longer, delved deeper into the mythology of the ancient Near East, Freud would have reached the same startling conclusion about the origin of the Hebrew bible stories, as he did monotheism.

What Judaism actually added to the world’s religious thinking is something totally different and, at the same time, inherently harmful. Through their tribal and somehow shallow collective mentality, the Hebrews had planted the root of religious dogmatism and fanaticism when they allowed for the absurd idea of God’s chosen people to flourish and permeate the religious thinking from then on.

Unfortunately that religious extremism passed on to Christianity, which was supposed to act as a counterbalance to Judaism’s tribal vulgarity, until it reached its worst case in Islam.

What good is this kind of monotheism when its adherents, be it Jews, Christians or Muslims, are soaked to the arm pits in their fundamental belief/illusion that their god is the only true god and hence they are the true sons/believers … and that the others are just deluded people who somehow got lost along the way to salvation. Dividing the world into Jews and Goyim is simply the Jewish idea of monotheism, or in other words, the Jewish defacement of monotheism which we today and most unfortunately still endure through its long term fallouts.

What kind of god, who would favor a particular son and detest/abondon his others. This was something totally new to the Ancient Near East. May be the Egyptians had their own gods, but that did not prevent them from respecting Babylonian gods like Ishtar or acknowledging their power.

Even when Alexander the great or the Greeks, known as Ptolemies, invaded Egypt, they continued to worship the ancient Egyptian gods alongside theirs. And sometimes the ancient gods of the two cultures were combined (Syncretized) in one divinity, as in the brilliant example of the syncretized god, Serapis (half Greek, half Egyptian), who stood in glory for hundreds of years at the temples of ancient Alexandria and at the gate of its splendid library until his sanctuary was desecrated by the intolerant/extremist followers of early Christianity.

(Watch the tragic destruction of the ancient library of Alexandria and the sanctuary of Serapis by a fanatic Christian mob)

The prejudiced monotheism of Judaism, based mainly on the principle of nepotism/favoritism, was such a setback and a demeaning step, for the ancient religious thinking, compared to the monotheism of Akhenaten and his god Aten. The Aten, contrary to the tribal version of Yahew, was a universal god, a sun disk that released and stretched out its rays all over the earth and blessed everybody, not just the Egyptians.

The Hebrew scribes, in a cheap bid to grant a piece of land to the Israelites, and through their deliberation/or thoughtlessness had managed to strip the literature of ancient Sumer and the mythology of Egypt of its mysticism, universalism and wisdom. Through their tampering with the rich theology of the Ancient near East, and by clumsily sticking their tribal god into its intricate and sublime design, the religious thinking and evolution has since been immersed in dogmatism, tainted with extremism and gone astray.

For more articles visit Dr. Ashraf Ezzat website

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

The prejudiced monotheism of Judaism . . . resulted in Xianity of the East Europeans in 0 AD, then later Islam of the Bedouins in the 630s where the same was COPIED AGAIN from Xianity (Spirit Jibril / Angel Gabriel exactly the same) with modifications of a perhaps a slight improvement – no anthropomorphic depictions allowed but far worse in final application by authoritarian rulers who by many accounts use religion to manipulate tyranise the people, religious fundos and fundo type societies.

Like the latest pop fashion cult of personality or electronic fad, they all wanted in, but forgot their OWN Elder Gods in the process. Judaism was formed from the Egyptian Priesthood after the Bedouins overran Egypt and the Priesthood escaped through the Red Sea to found Jerusalem with Amon Ra being converted into Y.H.V.H. and Moses his prophet (this was copied by Xianity with Jesus the prophet, then later Islam with Mohammed his prophet . . . study each faith and some Comparative Religion as well as Ancient History).

Amon-Ra (Aten) was the progenitor of all Monotheisms by the lazy Heretic Pharoah Akhenaten who was too lazy to worship polytheistically.Akhenaten ‘invented’ Amon-ra which was to disintegrate into the warring factions of ‘Monotheism’ (Judaism, Islam, Xianity) today because Amon-Ra even though ‘original’, was as prejudiced as Judaism – was for Egyptians ONLY, much like Islam is for Muslims and headed by Arab Kings only.

In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 photo, James Davis, 73, stands over the grave of his wife, Patsy, in the front yard of the home they shared in Stevenson, Ala. The city sued to make Davis move his wife’s remains from the residential tract, and Davis is asking the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals to block an order requiring him to disinter her remains. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 photo, James Davis holds a photo of his late wife, Patsy Davis, on the porch of their home in Stevenson, Ala. Davis buried his wife in their front yard, and the city filed suit to force him to remove the remains. Davis is fighting a court order requiring him to disinter the body. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) — James Davis is fighting to keep the remains of his late wife right where he dug her grave: In the front yard of his home, just a few feet from the porch.

Davis said he was only abiding by Patsy Ruth Davis’ wishes when he buried her outside their log home in 2009, yet the city sued to move the body elsewhere. A county judge ordered Davis to disinter his wife, but the ruling is on hold as the Alabama Civil Court of Appeals considers his challenge.

Davis, 73, said he never expected such a fight.

“Good Lord, they’ve raised pigs in their yard, there’s horses out the road here in a corral in the city limits, they’ve got other gravesites here all over the place,” said Davis. “And there shouldn’t have been a problem.”

While state health officials say family burial plots aren’t uncommon in Alabama, city officials worry about the precedent set by allowing a grave on a residential lot on one of the main streets through town. They say state law gives the city some control over where people bury their loved ones and have cited concerns about long-term care, appearance, property values and the complaints of some neighbors.

“We’re not in the 1800s any longer,” said city attorney Parker Edmiston. “We’re not talking about a homestead, we’re not talking about someone who is out in the country on 40 acres of land. Mr. Davis lives in downtown Stevenson.”

A strong libertarian streak runs through northeast Alabama, which has relatively few zoning laws to govern what people do with their property. Even a neighbor who got into a fight with Davis over the gravesite — Davis said he punched the man — isn’t comfortable with limiting what a homeowner can do with his property.

“I don’t think it’s right, but it’s not my place to tell him he can’t do it,” said George W. Westmoreland, 79, who served three tours of duty in Vietnam. “I laid my life on the line so he would have the right to do this. This is what freedom is about.”

Westmoreland declined to discuss his specific objections to the grave.

It’s unclear when the appeals court might rule. Attorneys filed initial papers in the appeal on Friday. The decision could come down to whether the judges believe the front-yard grave constitutes a family plot that requires no approval or a cemetery, which would.

In the meantime, Davis has protested by running for City Council. A campaign sign hangs near a bigger sign in his yard that says: “Let Patsy Rest in Peace.”

A law professor who is familiar with the case said it’s squarely at the intersection of personal rights and government’s power to regulate private property. While disputes over graves in peoples’ yards might be rare, lawsuits over the use of eminent domain actions and zoning restrictions are becoming more common as the U.S. population grows, said Joseph Snoe, who teaches property law at Samford University in suburban Birmingham.

“The United States Supreme Court has said that the states, and the cities through the states, have the power to regulate. But if it goes too far … then the government’s got to pay, and there are certain things the government just doesn’t have the power to do,” he said. “As we get bigger and as government gets bigger and as people are more regulated … you start having more and more disagreements.”

Davis, a longtime carpenter, built the family’s home on a corner on Broad Street about 30 years ago in Stevenson, a town of about 2,600 in northeast Alabama. Once a bustling railroad stop, the city is now so quiet some people don’t bother locking their doors. Stars twinkle brightly in the night sky; there aren’t many lights to blot them out.

Davis first met Patsy when she was a little girl. They were married for 48 years, but she spent most of her final days bedridden with crippling arthritis. Seated on a bench beside her marble headstone and flower-covered grave, Davis said he and his wife planned to have their bodies cremated until she revealed she was terrified by the thought.

“She said this is where she wanted to be and could she be put here, and I told her, ‘Yeah,'” Davis said. “I didn’t think there’d be any problem.”

There was, though. A big one.

After his wife died on April 18, 2009, the City Council rejected Davis’ request for a cemetery permit. The decision came even though the county health department signed off on the residential burial, saying it wouldn’t cause any sanitation problems.

Ignoring the council’s decision, Davis said he and a son-in-law cranked a backhoe and dug a grave just a few feet from the house. A mortuary installed a concrete vault, and workers lowered Patsy’s body into the plot in a nice, metal casket.

The city sued, and the case went to trial early this year. That’s when a judge ordered Davis to move his wife’s remains to a licensed cemetery. That order is on hold to give the state appeals court time to rule.

For now, Davis visits his wife’s grave each time he walks out the front door. He puts fresh artificial flowers on it regularly, and he washes off the marker when raindrops splatter dirt on the gray stone. At Christmas, he said, he and other relatives hold a little prayer vigil around the grave, which is beside an old wooden garage.

Edmiston said the man rejected several compromises from the city, including the offer of two plots in the municipal graveyard.

While state officials say they don’t know how many people might be buried on residential lots in Alabama, burials on private property in Alabama are not uncommon, said Sherry Bradley, deputy environmental director for the state Department of Public Health.

While the state can regulate cemeteries, Bradley said it doesn’t have any control over family burial plots. The city contends the grave at Davis’ home is an illegal cemetery that falls under government oversight, said Edmiston, the city lawyer.

If nothing else, Edmiston said, the appeals court might decide what constitutes a “family burial plot” in Alabama, and what’s a cemetery.

“It would be far-reaching if they say anyone can bury someone in their front yard if there are no drainage issues,” he said.

As it is, Davis said his five children will bury him in the yard beside Patsy after he dies, and they and his 15 grandchildren will care for the property from then on.

“That’s my perpetual care,” said Davis, referring to the city’s worry about what the grave will look like after he dies.

Davis is adamant that he won’t move the body, regardless of what any court says.

“If they get it done it’ll be after I’m gone,” said Davis. “So if they order her to be moved, it’s a death sentence to me. I’ll meet Mama sooner than I planned on it.”

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Man’s home or land is their castle. End of issue. This is ‘sovereign’ territory, and James Davis is well within rights to do whatever. Sometimes this is also due to the distance to the nearest cemetary, the sheer amount of paperwork for funerals and cemetaries, or the sheer cost of buying plots at cemetaries, or simple wishes of the deceased before dying or from belief that ‘high density resting places are as bad as high density living’ . ‘Fresh artificial’ flowers?!? Oxymoron MSM propaganda article? These days hard to tell what news portals are trying to do . . .

St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff deputies examine a car with bullet holes at a crime scene where two sheriffs were killed and two wounded in LaPlace, La., Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

(AP) NEW ORLEANS – At least some of the seven people arrested in a fatal shootout with Louisiana deputies have been linked to violent anarchists on the FBI’s domestic terrorism watch lists, a sheriff said Saturday.

Detectives had been monitoring the group before Thursday’s shootout in Laplace in which two deputies were killed and two more wounded, said DeSoto Parish Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle. His detectives and other law enforcement discovered the suspects were heavily armed adherents to an ideology known as the “sovereign citizens” movement.

The FBI has classified “sovereign citizens” as people who believe they are free from all duties of a U.S. citizen, like paying taxes. The FBI considers the group’s members a danger for making threats to judges and law enforcement, using fake currency and impersonating police officers.

The seven suspects have been charged in the shooting of Deputy Michael Scott Boyington, who survived. But authorities have said murder charges are pending.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating the killings but declined to comment Saturday and referred questions to the Louisiana State Police, the lead investigating agency.

Arrested were the group’s apparent leader, 44-year-old Terry Smith, his wife, Chanel Skains, 37, and his two sons, Derrick Smith, 22, and Brian Lyn Smith, 24. Also arrested were Brittney Keith, the girlfriend of Brian Smith; Kyle David Joekel, 28, and a woman living with him, 21-year-old Teniecha Bright.

Brian Smith was charged with attempted first-degree murder and the others with related charges.

Detectives in Tennessee, Nebraska and Louisiana have sketched a portrait of an outlaw gang led by a 44-year-old accused molester named Terry Smith, who has a criminal record dating to 1984 in Morehouse Parish, the Times-Picayune reported Saturday.

Morehouse Parish Sheriff Mike Stubbs said the Smith family was notorious. He said they lived for a long time in a house on the outskirts of Bastrop.

“We had a good bit of dealings with them,” he said. He said the Smith brothers had been involved in theft and drugs.

Arbuckle, reached by telephone by The Associated Press, said his deputies had the group under surveillance and considered them armed and dangerous before they suddenly left his parish about two months ago. He said they had set up camp at a mobile home park while they working at an International Paper plant.

The sheriff said deputies became suspicious after they investigated a reported burglary in May at the park’s laundry. The detectives discovered members wanted under warrants issued in Tennessee, Nebraska and Louisiana.

“Once we had them on our radar we started doing research on them,” he said. Arbuckle said his detectives monitored the group until they left in November.

Sovereign citizens are a loosely organized movement founded in the 1970s and more fully developed in the 1980s, according to the Anti-Defamation League website.

Sovereign citizens believe that all levels of government have no jurisdiction over them and resist — sometimes with violence — authority including police, the website said.

They also like to use what is dubbed “paper terrorism.” It involves using frivolous lawsuits and fake documents and of using genuine documents such as IRS forms to intimidate, harass and coerce public officials, law enforcement officers and private citizens. Arbuckle said his detectives could easily have been the victims instead of the St. John the Baptist Parish deputies killed and wounded. Deputies Brandon Nielsen and Jeremy Triche were killed and along with Boyington, Jason Triche was wounded. The Triches were somehow related, authorities said.

“We understand they had some pretty good firepower,” Arbuckle said. “This very well could have been us” in the gunfight, he said.

He said the group traveled the country in trailers doing construction work and possessed a stockpile of weapons.

They were arrested after an early morning assault on Boyington led to the deadly shootout in the mobile home park in Laplace, a suburb west of New Orleans. Boyington was shot at the entrance of a parking lot used by contract workers on a job at a nearby oil refinery. He was working off-duty on a security detail at the lot.

Shortly thereafter, the other deputies were shot at the trailer park where a car involved in the first shooting was spotted.

Joekel and Brian Smith were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and will be jailed once they are out of the hospital. The others were jailed with bonds ranging from $350,000 to $750,000. The Gage County, Neb., Sheriff’s Office website listed Joekel among its most wanted fugitives, saying he is accused of making “terroristic threats” to patrons of a Nebraska bar and law enforcement officials. Sgt. Len Marie, a state police spokesman, said investigators were amassing evidence. He said the agency had received the reports from the DeSoto sheriff and other law enforcement agencies in other states. He said the FBI and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was involved.

He said it was too early to verify links to the extremist groups associated with the sovereign citizen movement.

Actually if enough Congressmen and Governors decide that taxes do not exist, taxes will not exist. One does not have to be a ‘sovereign citizen’ to not want to pay taxes, though those with extreme amounts of surplus should at least support local infrastructure, enforcement or military. Theft and other crimes in the pursuit of abolishment of taxes though are wrong. Good work on not outright killing these people (we keep hearing about homeless or defenseless people killed by overwhelming numbers of police) and arresting them for a trial.

Hope the citizens were not roughed up or anything. Some ‘police’ though are false police, and dress up in uniforms or even have fitted cars to look like police cars. The sovereign citizens could use this ‘fake cops problem’ as an ‘excuse’ for opening fire or ‘defending themselves’ . . . though any incidental injuries or killings if traced would have this Anti-Defamation or ‘self defending’ lot in the grey area.

Jason Young and Tyrell O’Donnell stole a car and fled police in a 100mph chase across two counties
They smashed into Jackie Stretton’s car, breaking her back and leaving her fighting for her life
Judge Rodger Hayward-Smith is bound by strict sentencing guidelines laid down by the government
He told court: ‘It is awful. I am stuck with it because of what the law says and I can’t abide it’

A judge has launched a stinging attack on the justice system after he was powerless to hand longer sentences to two men who left a young woman crippled in an horrific car crash as they fled from police.

Judge Rodger Hayward-Smith QC, had to sentence prolific offenders Jason Young, 21, and Tyrell O’Donnell, 20, to less than 18 months after they stole a car and fled police in a 100mph chase across two counties, which ended when their Fiat Stilo smashed into Jackie Stretton’s car leaving her severely injured.

Judge Hawyard-Smith, who is bound by strict sentencing guidelines laid down by the government, handed the maximum possible sentences of two years each for aggravated vehicle taking but both terms were automatically reduced by a third due to the men’s guilty pleas.

However, he stunned Chelmsford Crown Court, Essex when he said the pair deserved much longer behind bars.

He said: ‘You will get out of prison and will get your life back but Jackie Stretton will never get over this, physically or mentally.

‘It is absurd – if I just pass sentence and allow credit for your guilty pleas, because I have to – it will not be enough.

‘It is awful. I am stuck with it because of what the law says, and I can’t abide it.

‘Jackie Stretton has suffered a very great deal and both defendants are in their twenties with appalling previous records.

‘You deserve, both of you, to go to prison for a very long time and I greatly regret that I am restricted in what sentence I can give you because of what Parliament has decided.

‘You say you are sorry and I hope that you are because the sentence I have passed is nothing like enough.’

Jail: Jason Young, 21, left, and Tyrell O’Donnell, 20, right, were sentenced to less than 18 months after they stole a car and fled police in a 100mph chase across two counties then crashed into Jackie Stretton’s car

Crash scene: The reckless high-speed chase ended when the pair lost control of the Fiat Stilo and smashed into Jackie Stretton’s VW Beetle leaving her severely injured and clinging to life

Miss Stretton, 25, of Maldon, Essex, suffered ‘appalling injuries’ as she broke her back and suffered bleeding to her brain in the crash and was left clinging to life in hospital.

Her kneecap was also broken and she was airlifted to Queen’s Hospital, Romford, and placed in a drug-induced coma.

Injured: Jackie Stretton suffered ‘appalling injuries’ as she broke her back and suffered bleeding to her brain in the crash

She had completed charity marathons and coast-to-coast adventure races, but will never make a full recovery from the injuries she suffered in the crash in April and she now walks with the aid of a back brace.

Young and O’Donnell, both from Devon, were both sentenced after they admitted charges of aggravated vehicle taking.

The court heard that O’Donnell was arrested at the scene but Young fled and did not turn himself in to police until five days later.

Law graduate Miss Stretton looked on in tears as the two men were sentenced – 18 months for the driver of the stolen car O’Donnell, and 16 months for his passenger Young.

The pair – who both have a long string of motoring offences – were banned from the roads for five years.

Miss Stretton is no longer able to drive, so had to catch the bus from her home to be at court to witness the men who ruined her life being sentenced.

She said: ‘I just feel so relieved that it is over but my life has changed and I won’t get that back.

‘I have been told that I may need my kneecap replaced when I reach 50 and I won’t ever get compensated for that.

‘I love my sports but I have not been able to compete and it has also affected my relationships with people because I have changed since it happened.’

Miss Stretton welcomed the men’s ban from the roads.

She added: ‘I am really happy that they have been disqualified from driving for five years – that is the bit that is hopefully going to make a difference.

‘They have so many previous driving offences – their records went on for pages.’

Richard Stevens, prosecuting, had told the court the men had stolen the Fiat from a caravan park in Suffolk at 5.30am on April 5.
Chelmsford Crown Court

Court: Miss Stretton told Chelmsford Crown Court, pictured, that she is no longer able to drive, so caught the bus from her home to be at court to witness the men who ruined her life being sentenced

The pair headed towards London at incredibly fast speeds – often over 100mph – and at one stage going 80mph in a 30mph residential area.

The car was seen cutting between lanes on the A12 as police followed them.

They finally lost control on a right-hand bend causing a massive crash involving Miss Stretton’s car, a police car and a Porsche on the A414 at Danbury.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Sentence Jason Young and Tyrell O’Donnell to 18 months (times 3 to simulate 24 hours in prison) in a care home for traffic injuries instead. Jailing costs money to the taxpayers and enriches the ‘Prison-BuildingContractor-Supplier Complex’ while unpaid work with injury victims (under the watchful eye and instruction of some chain gang overseers nurses or such, could teach empathy instead, with minimal food allowances and no lodging expenses (Jason and Tyrell can sleep at their homes as usual to save money). Bad judgment! Meaningless, does not address the prisoner’s angst/pathos and costly to the taxpayer!

Guilty: Nigel French was today sentenced to six months in jail for drilling a peephole in the floor above a girls’ shower room

A school caretaker who drilled holes above a changing room to spy on naked girls showering was jailed for six months today.

Nigel French, 51, secretly watched the girls through a peephole after their swimming lessons at a South Wales secondary school.

The married father of two, who claimed he was looking for bats in the upstairs storage room, was found guilty of attempted voyeurism.

French was caught when the deputy headmaster spotted his feet poking out from under a stack of gym mats.

A ceiling tile had been moved to give a ‘better view’ into the cubicle.

Merthyr Crown Court heard French, a caretaker at the school for 21 years, was often seen hanging around the viewing gallery next to the pool.

An investigation discovered eight more holes over the boys’ changing rooms, which had previous years been for the girls.

Prosecutor Suzanne Thomas said: ‘It was likely the holes above the boys changing room were done some years ago.’

French claimed he was lying on the mats waiting for a class to finish before cleaning the pool Pen y Dre High School in Merthyr Tydfil.

In police interview he said: ‘My only offence could be skiving. I went up to the viewing gallery and I laid down facing forward, looking at the side of the pool, waiting for the lesson to finish.

‘I wasn’t spying on pupils in the pool because that would be wrong.’

Mother and father jailed for beating their daughter, 17, for ‘bringing shame on the family’ by having a black boyfriend

The caretaker at first claimed he was looking for bats above the changing rooms.

Three bats had been found dead in the swimming pool area over the past three years.

None had ever been found in the viewing gallery, however, and there was no evidence of bats nesting in the school.
Pen y Dre

Breach of trust: The married father of two and former Scout leader had worked at Pen y Dre High School (pictured) for 21 years

French, of Merthyr Tydfil, will have to register as a sex offender for seven years.

The former Scout leader and regular churchgoer was banned from ever working with children.

Judge Richard Twomlow said: ‘There were girls in the changing room and, although it is not clear whether you saw anybody, that was your intention.

‘The only way you were able to see into the cubicle was because a ceiling tile had been removed.

‘As the caretaker, you inspected that changing room every day and the only conclusion I can make is that it was you, in all likelihood, who removed the ceiling tile.

‘Whoever drilled those holes, this was a very serious breach of trust.

‘No girl who went into that changing room will know whether they were spied on or not. You have demonstrated no remorse.’

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

Sorry but this is not enough – he violated the privacy of lots of vulnerable underage girls in an educational setting and this is all he gets? This does not send out a strong enough message. They guy will prob only serve 2 or 3 months and in seven years it will be as if he’d never done anything. He abused a position of trust and he left all those girls wondering whether he was perving over them. He needs a proper hefty sentence which is heavier because of his repeated denial. Yet the sentencing guidelines state that a non-custodial order is all that is required for this offence – so in that context 6 months is prob all the judge could give. Now how is that right? This type of offence could be a precursor to more serious offences and it should therefore be a point of intervention.It basically says spying on naked underage girls is okay. Yet if he made an image then 2 years min in jail. ie spy on them live because the penalty is lower – now is that right?

– TC, Notts, 07/8/2012 15:04

Sick sick man. Just can’t trust your kids around anyone these days!

– just me…, Melbourne, Australia, 07/8/2012 14:35

PERVERT should never be allowed near children again. They should make sur he never has another opportunity and everyone should remeber his face.

– Bird, US, 07/8/2012 14:33

And yet a man who grew some cannabis for his own use in his own home was given 5 years! Who, out of the two, poses the greatest threat to the general public? This old pervert should have been jailed for a lot longer, he has probably been looking at the girls changing for years, if my daughter had attended that school I would be going absolutely crazy with anger.

The cost to the prison system should according to another article be 20K sterling for 6 months. A caretaker would barely earn the same for 2 years. Which taxpayers want to pay for this? Well those who hate England and want free meal and lodging, do you know how to destroy England now? Peep at some pasty skinned barely matured teens, leave some kiddie porn on a laptop to be intentionally discovered, smash some property in front of the police, hit someone hated and make sure a record or report is made, and England will be backrupt and all the courts clogged up with backlogged cases in no time. At 40K a year, only 1 million offences by ‘hoodlums’ are needed to do another 40 billlion sterling in damage or if we are talking 10 year prison sentence offences 400 billion sterling and collateral insurance damages of 1.2 trillion (assuming damage is 60K sterling worth).

So who’s up to teaching England’s legislators and MPs a lesson, or making a statement loud and clear to the taxpayers on who not to vote? No amount of industry sector earnings can counter the damage system in place to enrich the ‘Prison Supplier-Contractor Complex’. Some of us don’t like destroying the lives of others but since this is what has been given by society, heres returning the favour! Chavs and hoodies, ready to start the ‘War of Independence in England’? Start with the prison system . . . then target the Education-Debt-Financiar Complex (those who are locked out of the jobs market for your politics or what not, teach them what 1 single person can do that will cause 10 free educations for that single free education they refused to GIVE or make tertiary education free with to intentionally indebt young people into debt slavery . . . lets make this square whole!

Disclaimer : This was written with much sarcasm and applies to those who have been sabotaged by society or intentionally bled by unreasonable policies, laws or fines, the ability to differentiate or create reality I leave to the readers . . .

One controversial Miami restaurant is saving on washing up by giving diners the chance to eat sushi directly off the bare bodies of good looking men and women – but you have to pay a whopping $500 for the privilege.

Customers can order up to six feet of sushi and sashimi at the Catalina Hotel & Beach Club’s Kung Fu Kitchen and Sushi – enough to feed 15 hungry diners – and the Japanese cuisine comes strategically placed along the length of the model’s body.

Controversial: One Miami restaurant is giving diners the chance to eat sushi directly off the bare bodies of models, pictured

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‘You call in advance or pop in and hopefully we have someone that wants to take their clothes off and lie on a table.’

Diners use their chopsticks to eat directly off the ‘human platter’. They can nibble nori rolls off nipples if they choose, in the controversial deal that is being offered until September 30, during Miami’s restaurant month.

Staff: The restaurant’s waiters volunteered to take their clothes off for extra cash

Hygiene: Eating food directly off models was banned in China

The sushi joint has had three naked sushi parties so far, ABC reported.

And Lieberman hasn’t even had to fork out for real models.

‘I have a very good-looking staff,’ he told the TV station. ‘They said, ‘We want the money, and we like to be naked.”

When a bachelorette party requested a male model, they used one of their sushi chefs, ‘a real stud,’ Lieberman said.

The practice of serving food off naked bodies was banned in China in 2005.
Limited time: Catalina Hotel & Beach Club’s Kung Fu Kitchen and Sushi restaurant in Miami, pictured, is offering the special deal until September 30

Great idea?: The bizarre culinary experience was the brainchild of restaurant owner Nathan Lieberman, pictured

But Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation hasn’t got a problem with it as long as the restaurant is being hygienic.

‘Generally speaking, as long as the restaurant is adhering to FDA rules regarding no bare skin contact, it should be in compliance,’ spokesman Sandi Poreda told ABC.

Lieberman said the models are scrubbed ‘like surgeons’ before being decorated.

They have leaves and lettuce covering their private parts and their nipples are covered in plastic – as well as wasabi.

Will that be a C, D, E, or F cup model with your meal? Look up ‘Wakame Sake’ . . . How about ‘Sake Waterboarding’ for tips?

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

The outlet looks quite drab . . . $500? This laziest of jobs is only worth minimum wage multiplied by the number of people eating. Twice as much minimum with a (i) drunk (ii) stoned (take your choice of organic and lead time for the effects to kick in) or (iii) popper/viagra ‘prepped’ model as well instead. At the end of every work shift, most of us would still think they are getting paid for doing nothing. Beauty is the key here (no turning of stomach’s chance), though this niche based (novelty, adult themed, stag or hen parties etc.) on aesthetics is probably best a second job or third job. Perhaps a cosplay element with lingerie or some fetish wear as well? Will give new meaning to the accolade ‘dish’ a new spin. Don’t even get into ‘Guro’, No Chianti and Fava with Liver at this outlet . . .

As a fitness fanatic it is no surprise that Madonna has decided to open up a gymnasium but, she chose some bizarre clothes for the event.

The Like A Prayer singer took time out of her busy world tour schedule to open a Hard Candy fitness club in Moscow, Russia, today.

She may be fighting fit and in peak condition but the 53-year-old was in serious danger of dressing younger than a woman her age should.

She works out! Madonna opted for a strange choice of clothing to officially open her Hard Candy Fitness gym in Moscow, Russia, today

Madonna showed off her toned thighs in a very short black dress that featured lace chest and arms which also revealed her bra.

She accessorised the outfit with a pair of knee-high leather boots, fingerless gloves and some netted stockings.

She said: ‘Exercise is a really big part of my life, everybody knows that. I work out, I’ve been working out all my life dancing, training for my shows.

‘My live shows are extremely physical and if I don’t stay in shape I can’t do them.

‘Rather than going to gyms and complaining about what I don’t like about them I just decided to create my own and that way I can design the perfect gym.’

Witness the fitness: Although she is in great shape the outfit choice was a little revealing for a lady of her age

With her legion of loyal fans waiting outside for her she treated them to a short time of her presence as she waved to them all from the front of the gym.

The fitness club is sized at 3,500 square metres and is walking distance from the Red Square and Kremlin.

It actually opened its doors in December last year and has a contemporary design which features a group fitness studio with dance floor, swimming pool, spa and boxing ring.

Good afternoon: With her legion of loyal fans waiting outside for her she treated them to a short time of her presence

It also features an anti-gravity yoga studio which was something that Madonna was reportedly strongly behind.

The often outspoken artist also weighed in on the three feminist rockers who are currently jailed for performing a protest song against Vladimir Putin.

Speaking about the members of Pussy Riot, she said: ‘Obviously I believe in freedom of speech and I’m against censorship, so I hope that the judge is lenient with them and that they are freed soon.’

Madonna hopes members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Aliokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich will be released soon

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Run for election change some laws and GTFO of congress yer over-rich smart plutocrat muso. A gym?!? Ok this is better than conical bras or a failed school project in Malawi, but at this level of wealth 0.5 Billion therabouts (twice as rich as Romney), Maddie should be going for the Presidency or at least setting up an airline with private airfields in every major city (perhaps internationally) to allow her fans to circumvent the TSA. Slacker! Don’t ‘hope’, LEAD by example.

Paul Keating urged Australia and the US to recognise the legitimacy of China as a great power in his speech on Monday. Photo: Louie Douvis

Former prime minister Paul Keating has broken with the Rudd-Gillard governments’ close alignment with the US to criticise President Barack Obama’s approach to the relationship with China.

In a speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Mr Keating warned that history showed the US could not expect to win another war on the Asian mainland and should focus more on strategic co-operation with China.

“I have long held the view that the future of Asian stability cannot be cast by a non-Asian power – ­especially by the application of US ­military force,” he said.

He strongly rejected the idea that Australia had no choice but to back US rivalry against a rising China, and declared the US and Australia needed to recognise the legitimacy of the current Chinese government and its prerogatives as a great power.

The speech underlines divisions within both sides of federal politics about how to manage growing tensions between the US and China, particularly as business interests place more weight on relations with fast-growing China over Australia’s traditional security alliance with the US.

It follows the Coalition’s efforts to paper over differences about how to manage investment by Chinese state-owned companies which has seen the National Farmers Federation at odds with some rural backbenchers.

Mr Keating spoke at the launch of The China Choice, a book by strategic analyst Hugh White, which says that the US should share power with China and relinquish its leadership role in Asia to avoid conflict with China.

Mr Keating strongly endorsed ­Professor White’s argument, which has been criticised by other analysts for undermining the value of ­Australia’s long-standing US alliance and caving into pressure from non-democratic China.

Mr Keating would not comment on his apparent difference with the pro-US tilt pursued by prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

The speech is likely to further undermine the persistent efforts by the current government to position itself as the inheritor of the Hawke-Keating mantle on foreign relations.

“When we Australians were running around North Asia in the early 1990s setting up APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] and the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, we were doing it not to become foreign policy busybodies – we were doing it because we saw it all coming,” Mr Keating said in what appeared to be an implied criticism of his successors and the US.

“Why it took the United States until 2011 to make the so-called ‘pivot’ back to Asia; to acknowledge the centrality of Asia in the new strategic settings, is a matter of wonderment.”

He said the globalisation of countries had run ahead of the globalisation of strategy and the US had missed its chance to help shape a new world order around the rise of major developing countries and now faced a long hard slog to adjust.

Mr Keating underlined his different approach to the current government with his sharp criticism of President Obama’s speech to federal Parliament last November in which he reinforced the new US pivot to Asia with the rotation of marines through Darwin for training.

“Even President Obama told us during his visit to our Parliament, that ‘prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty’,” he said. “That remark placed a heavy discount on the success of the Chinese Communist Party in dragging its community from abject poverty.

“The seemingly perpetual invocation of this human rights mantra attributes no moral value to the scale and quality of the Chinese achievement,” Mr Keating said, in a contrast to the way Mr Rudd’s relationship with the Chinese leadership appeared to wane after he criticised China’s human rights record.

He said Australians should reject the argument that they had no choice over future conflict between the US and China and push both countries towards a more co-operative structure.

“From Australia’s position, a choice is what we do not need – and in a co-operative structure, there would be less need to make one,” he said.

“This is why there is every reason to try to face America up to its changed economic and strategic circumstances, rather than traffic in the pretence that the rise of a state potentially larger than itself will have little strategic consequence for either it or for us.

“I have long held the view that the future of Asian stability cannot be cast by a non-Asian power – especially by the application of US military force.”

He said the American failure in the Vietnam, Korean, Afghanistan and Iraq wars showed the US could not win a war on mainland Asia and should not adopt a policy which could lead to military confrontation with China.

As the China-US rivalry starts to play out within both sides of federal politics, Foreign Minister Bob Carr appears to be emphasising broader links to China after the difficulties during the Rudd government.

Former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has led a push in the opposition to accommodate a rising China.

The Australian Financial Review

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Vietnam war took 30 years WITHOUT the Middle East mess in the backgound, and US still lost. So if China actually makes the Vietnamese (which beat the USA in effect) feel nervous (currently Vietnam and China are too economically linked so no likelihood of war), how can US want to take on China WHILE the Middle East mess is not yet finished? Is USA ready for a 300 year fight with ’10 times the size of Vietnam’ China even as the Middle East Mess could take 30 years more to resolve?

USA is stuck in the Middle East for another 30 years at least unless they develop satellite mind control or do ‘something dramatic’, short of carpet bombing everything with non-nuke options in the Middle East. Does USA really need to control the whole world? Don’t forget this is JUST China, Russia is the chess Queen that has not made a move with perhaps North Korea, which is certainly no pawn . . . Keating is making sense here. And the next move will be who gets control of Syria (a pawn possibly out of necessity), NOT how to take out China when even Vietnam would still probably be too much for USA today if USA wanted to conquer Vietnam a second time!

mini-ARTICLE 6.5

Convocation robe a British legacy, must be scrapped: Kalam

Former President of India A P J Abdul Kalam, while delivering the convocation address of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University on Friday, described the convocation robe a British relic.

Earlier this year, Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had refused to wear the convocation robe during a ceremony and had called it a part of British relic. Later in the year, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar had refused to put on the convocation gown at another ceremony.

Though Kalam did not do a Jairam or a Sarkar, and wore the robe during the ceremony, he suggested the convocation robe should be done away with.

“The gown should go. It is British gown. We must have a simple Indian dress instead — an Angavastram or a Lucknow dress, maybe, which is lighter and suitable for all seasons,” said Kalam.

Introducing the concept of Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) to the students, Kalam encouraged the students of the university to start the project. “ This will provide a hands-on experience to the students in taking up societal missions,” said Kalam.

Before this, Chancellor of the university, Professor U R Rao declared the convocation open. A total of 31 Ph D scholars and 373 post graduate students were given their respective degree certificates at the convocation held for 2007-09 and 2008-10 batches.

Truly pride of culture here. Now think ‘Sunday Best’ and ‘Formal Wear’ and get those Indian equivalents into society as well. Suggest that all ‘big shot’ Indians begin the trend to lead the way in reculturisation of India . . .

NEW DELHI: A minister, known for his radical views, stoked up another controversy at a graduation ceremony today, when he chucked away his convocation robes which he described as “medieval and barbaric”.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, chief guest at the Indian Institute of Forest Management Seventh convocation, stunned guests and students, when he removed the colourful flowing maroon robes draped on him, while at the rostrum to deliver his speech.

“I still have not been able to figure out after 60 years of independence why we stick to these barbaric colonial relics.

“Why cannot we have a convocation in simple dress, instead of coming dressed up as medieval vicars and popes. This practice started in 13th century Oxford,” he said, evoking applause from the students.

Further ridiculing the colonial practice, Ramesh, who was at the centre of a controversy over the genetically-modifed brinjal debate in India recently, suggested that students come in normal dress for convocation ceremonies.

“You can come to a convocation in shirt and trousers. Why the robes, and the hat which is worn, only to be thrown in the air, at the end of the ceremony?” he was quoted as saying, by the Times of India.

The 55-year-old Congress minister eventually delivered his speech at the ceremony, in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, wearing the popular Indian “kurta”, his trademark attire.

Lets have India revive a Constitutional Monarchy with representative powers made up of a Ruler’s Collective of extant Maharajas. Then have the media tabloids focus on Indian culture and Indian society or Indian religion, instead of what the white monarchs are doing.

A Chief Minister to be proud of, unlike other parallels in oppressed/fundo countries who shamelessly pretend that apartheid does not exist and instead ask for 750K funerals before on the back of tax payer monies BEFORE ending apartheid first (not that asking for funeral funds is even thinkable . . . ). The UN and Islam do not accept apartheid! Would CM Malik communicate this to the unthinking idiots with equally high posts here in Malaysia?

A stuffed animal on the ground at the Packard Automotive Plant a former car manufacturing factory in Detroit, Michigan (AFP Photo / Getty Images)

With hundreds of thousands having fled Detroit in the last decade alone, the city is turning into a deserted dumping ground for murder victims. And with its budget choked, the Motor City has had to cut back on its police force to boot.

­A report published Thursday by the Associated Press tells of two bodies decomposing in an empty Detroit lot littered with tires and furniture. The teenage boys had been stripped to their underwear, shot, and then left to rot on one of the city’s many abandoned, formerly residential blocks.

They were only the latest in a string of murder victims whose remains lay for days before being discovered. Detroit has become a kind of agglomeration of rural patches contained inside an urban area, where what were once neighborhoods have turned into overgrown fields.

Outsiders – and police – are unlikely to visit the inner wasteland of what some Americans now call the Murder City.

The situation is a result of nearly fifty years of decay, after white residents started making their way to the suburbs in the 1950s. And after a vicious race riot in 1967, their mass relocation picked up in earnest.

Over the next two decades, the city’s black middle class followed, and blocks – sometimes neighborhoods – of empty houses and overgrown lawns are all that remain today.

Tens of thousands of the city’s homes have been falling apart over the years – some collapsing, while others have been demolished.

And now, the deserted parts of town are quickly turning into dumping grounds for bodies – at a rate of about one corpse found every month for the last year. And those are only counting the victims authorities know of.

Seventy-four-year-old Ella Dunn lives about a hundred meters from where 17-year-old Jacob Kudla and 18-year-old Jourdan Bobbish’s bodies were found by a passerby on July 27; they had disappeared in Detroit five days earlier.

Dunn’s is the closest inhabited house from the scene of the crime, as she’s watched nearly all her neighbors leave over the last 24 years.

Today, the neighborhood is used mostly for dumping trash – and whatever else those passing through need to get rid of. A toilet, various furniture items, and several boats can be seen in a nearby parking lot.

“They drive down and push stuff out,” Dunn told AP.

Earlier in July, two decapitated bodies were pulled out of the Detroit River and a canal nearby. City officials say they were shot and dismembered in suburban Allen Park, then brought to a deserted park in Detroit and dropped in the water.

In December, the corpses of two women were found in a car left near an abandoned house. A week later, the charred remains of two other women were discovered in the trunk of another car. Police say all of them were murdered elsewhere, then brought to Detroit for disposal.
In search of solutions – and funding

Right now, there isn’t much the city can do about it. Detroit lacks the money to level its staggering 30,000-plus abandoned houses, and has had to cut the police force’s pay in recent years.

Mayor Dave Bing is pushing a proposal that would use federal dollars to demolish as many of the houses as possible, with the State of Michigan pitching in as well.

And with law enforcement scrambling to keep track of crime, Bing has some unexpected help.

“The city has an annual tradition of burning homes on October 30th in an event called Devil’s Night. The city is so desperate that it can’t keep up with all the arsons,” Nathan Manire, a New York-based artist from Detroit, told RT.

In another possibility, the local government could buy up properties in mostly-deserted neighborhoods, leveling whole blocks in hopes of renewal sometime down the road. But, Dunn says, “I couldn’t move if I wanted to. They don’t want to give you any money for your house.” Dunn’s is one of only three occupied houses in her entire neighborhood.

Bing will need the government’s help if his plan is to succeed. With about 250,000 people having left Detroit since 2000, a city built for 2 million now houses a little more than 700,000 people. One of the results of that is that tax revenue is down, and everyone in town is feeling the effects.

General Motors, one of the largest corporations headquartered in the city, made about $1 billion in revenue between January and March of this year – but due to its former bankrupt status, chances are it won’t have to pay taxes for years to come.
Crime is always one step ahead

­And the city clearly needs a more serious police presence – which it also can’t afford. Officers recently took a 10 per cent reduction in pay.

When officer John Garner joined the Detroit Police Department in 1999, he was only responsible for a 3.6-square-mile area, and would see another officer roughly three times over the course of any given hour. Today, he covers 22 square miles, and bumps into a colleague “maybe once every two hours,” he said.

Garner added, “if we know this, the criminals know this.”

And as cops spend their time trying to keep track of all the major offenses, residents take yet another hit.

Manire said that inner Detroit’s young people “have few options other than to turn to drugs or crime, and many set up shop on abandoned blocks and sell drugs on the corner.” And since the city’s police are spread so thin, he added, “there’s little they can do.”

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Get Kim Schmitz to set up Chaank Heavy Industries in Detriot and build the Cainborg from Robocop 2 (Irvin Kershner 1990) or Death Machine (Stephen Norrington 1994). Will most certainly bring back the work lines (just like OCP Corp’s Chairman said) and for sure lots of Drug Lords or FreeMasons would want immortality as cyborg mecha (or at least soldiers, one can imagine the indentured soldiers paying off 10 lifetimes worth as killer-borgs with brains stuck in those machines) and kickstart the ‘Braincase’ industry . . .

US troops who caused scandal by sleeping with prostitutes ahead of a visit to Colombia by President Barack Obama also allowed sniffer dogs to sleep in hotel beds and defecate on the premises.

US Secret Service to receive ethics training after Colombia prostitution scandal
US Secret Service and military personnel allegedly took as many as 21 women back to their hotel, ahead of Obama’s trip to Cartagena Photo: AFP/GETTY

7:00AM BST 04 Aug 2012

A partially redacted report into April’s incident released Friday by the Pentagon revealed little that was not already known about how 12 soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors had taken prostitutes to their hotel rooms.

The team was in place as part of the security detail for Mr Obama’s visit to the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, and their behaviour came to light after nine civilian US Secret Service officers were caught for the same offence.

The report concluded that, while servicemen had breached US military law by consorting with sex workers and in some cases by committing adultery, and had shown bad discipline by drinking, they had not endangered national security.
According to the report, the Cartagena hotel where they were staying, El Caribe, allowed guests to entertain overnight guests – “commonly a prostitute” – and that no Colombian laws appeared to have been broken.

But investigators did receive complaints from local witnesses about the general behavior of the US personnel, including that the dozen suspects had kept “overnight guests” in their rooms after 6am in breach of hotel rules.

“Explosive detection dog handlers were allowing their animals to sleep in hotel beds, soil the linens and urinate and defecate in inappropriate locations on the hotel grounds, leaving the waste,” the report added.

“Unidentified hotel guests, thought to be American, were bothering and propositioning college-age female greeters working at El Caribe with the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” it noted.

April’s scandal was embarrassing to the Obama administration and led to allegations that the servicemen and agents might have compromised national security or the President’s safety by consorting with Colombian women.

The report, however, concluded there was no evidence that the women had ties to criminal drug-smuggling groups or terrorist movements, nor were they victims of human trafficking networks.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

The report concluded that, while servicemen had breached US military law by consorting with sex workers and in some cases by committing adultery

This military law does not make sense. Maybe for department heads and officers but not the rank and file. At most all rank and file who are married could be also be disallowed, but this draconian application could have impact on their performance ESPECIALLY if they are not getting along well with spouses back home. Adultery of course has social implications and could destroy familial relations, spoil visiting military repute, so soldiers/sailors should be required to make sure or otherwise stick to prostitutes only.

ZHENGZHOU – At a time when China’s housing prices are beyond the reach of most prospective homeowners, low-income housing has not received the warm welcome authorities expected..

The audit office of Henan province recently said that over half of the low-rent houses in the province’s six cities remain empty.

The six cities have built 16,000 low-rent housing units, 8,215 of which are empty, or 51.3 percent of the total.

The provincial capital of Zhengzhou began receiving applications for 1,551 public rental housing units last December but has received only 362 applications, according to the local government.

In recent years, central and local governments have been investing in low-income housing to satisfy the needs of low-income families.

The government has vowed to build 36 million affordable housing units during the 2011-2015 period. In 2011, it started construction on 10 million units.

However, supplies of low-income housing seem to have surpassed demand in many places around the country, including the provinces of Guangdong, Hubei and Hebei.

Henan government officials said the unpopularity of low-income housing can be attributed to a lack of supporting facilities and their remote locations.

The Zhujiangrongjing residential area is one of the most unpopular low-income housing complexes in Zhengzhou. The houses are located on the outskirts of the city and residents have to rely on primary schools and clinics in two nearby villages, since there is little transportation linking the residential area with downtown Zhengzhou.

In the Shangdonghuayuan residential area, another low-income housing complex in Zhengzhou, residents said there is only one bus line near the residential area, adding that the neighborhood is noisy and dirty due to the close proximity of construction sites.

Experts said some local governments chose to build the low-income housing in remote areas and sell more appealing locations to real estate developers to boost fiscal revenues.

Zhao Jinjing, vice president of a real estate business association in Henan, said low-income housing built by property developers has been more popular than that built by the government, as the developers build housing according to market needs.

“Therefore, the government should consider marketizing the low-income housing project and adopting some preferential policies, such as reducing taxes, to encourage developers to build more low-income houses,” Zhao said.

The provincial audit office of Henan said there are flaws in the distribution of low-income housing, as some people fabricate credentials in order to qualify for buying or renting the properties.

Experts said the government should make greater efforts to assess local residents’ incomes and current housing conditions before building and distributing low-income housing.

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The poor condition of public housing should be 3 units JOINED to be worth the current price. Also a single unit could be used for free and not cost anything, for China to be truly humane and socialist. Everyone deserves a home in China, for better conditions though they should be required to work towards that. China has enough wealth to give these ‘worst’ units to those who do not have homes, at least for free. Wealth distribution is socialist in nature and rubbish apartments are not worthwhile investments in many ways.

Putin asks that band members not be judged “too harshly” for political performance
The band members went on trial this week on hooliganism charges
“Mother Mary please drive Putin away,” the band screamed inside Christ Savior Cathedral

(CNN) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is asking a court to show leniency for three members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot, who are on trial in Moscow on hooliganism charges.

The Pussy Riot members went on trial Monday, charged after performing a song criticizing Putin in one of Moscow’s grandest cathedrals, Russia’s state news agency reported. The charge carries a potential seven-year sentence.

While Putin criticized their performance, he said Thursday, “Still, I do not think they should be judged too harshly for that,” RIA Novosti reported. He added that he hoped the court makes “the right decision.”

Pussy Riot specializes in sudden, often illegal public performances, including one in Moscow’s Red Square.

The punk prayer was inspired by the women’s anger about the relationship between the Russian government and the Orthodox Church, according to the band’s manager, who is married to one of the suspects.

The Orthodox Church Pope, Patriarch Kyril has been widely reported as saying Putin’s years in power have been a miracle from God.

The band’s behavior in one of Russia’s most sacred cathedrals has outraged many of the country’s faithful.

“This is a disgusting thing to do,” one woman told CNN.

“They should go to jail,” said another. “A year or two. Let them think about their behavior.”

But even some of those who were offended believe the women should not be in jail.

“If necessary, God will punish them,” one man said. “It must be not be cruel punishment.”

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

“Mother Mary please drive Putin away,” the band screamed inside Christ Savior Cathedral does not carry weight in the Duma. Just ignore, no need to even censor. And ‘Mary’ being so ‘motherly and virtuous’ to give birth to a Jesus should talk to Lady Liberty about 2 term limits but nothing else. Pussy Riot makes Russia fun and democratic, youth spirit if anything to blunt that image of icy terrains, fur hat clad soldiers and peasants huddled in ‘X’mas card like log hovels’ with their vodka and livestock . . . . Maybe these girls should get into politics eventually . . . or set up a Church similar structure to perform naked every night . . .

Nice one Putin . . . thats right! Leave the Judiciary much less the President of Russia or Orthodox Pope (there are 3.5 Popes at the moment btw – Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, with a 4th ‘Pope’ the Anglican Head Church also the King of England, USA has no Protestant ‘Pope’ . . . (gosh Prince Phillip, didn’t have to defer to ‘Marm’ so much that England would have no King . . . ) . . . out of this! Russia fights super-power nations NOT sensational naked FEMALE punk bands! Even if they had sex in the Church, a ban from all Churches would already be enough!

Name a nudist colony, a nudist zone or nudist stage club after Pussy Riot if Russia wants to show how Human Rights aware or ‘sex positive’ Russia is! Now lets pay attention to what ‘the Western’ and ‘Muslim’ Fronts are up to instead, enough time and media coverage on this sot of nonsense already . . . if 1 million Russians attended a nude concert, the stout of faith would not even bat an eyelid, this Church ‘slip through’ was not even worth covering, a few well fed (double or triple chinned???) nuns could just drag the Pussy Riot girls (some are even married! UGH!!! No offense to MILF-hunters . . . barf . . . lol ) out for an old fashioned spanking and that would have been the end of this farce, not involve Judges and Presidents and Popes (all the King’s men), not even 1st page media (maybe page 3?) . . . just ridiculous and out of proportion shows petty mindedness and brittleness of faith, of Russian society which is supposed to stoic enough to fight bears and want to crush the USA and the whole concept of Capitalism and socialise the plutocracy into wealth distribution . . . how could a little punk band like that frighten super-power Russia so much?

Russian MPs have proposed a ban on civil servants owning property abroad, including securities and bank deposits. The move is backed by the four main Duma factions: United Russia, Fair Russia, Communists and Liberal Democrats.

The bill draft states that all federal and municipal officials (including the President, Prime Minister and members of parliament) and their spouses and children cannot open accounts in overseas banks, or own foreign real estate and securities.

The MPs suggest that violating this regulation should be held criminally responsible and punished with a three-year ban from holding public office, and between 5 and 10 million rubles ($150,000 – $300,000) in fines or up to five years in prison.

An initial draft of the bill also orders civil servants to disclose ownership of foreign property, and sell it off within six months. The law would apply to inherited property and even to individuals leaving state service, effective up to three years post-resignation for both ex-officials and their families.

There are exceptions in the bill for those who need foreign property and bank accounts for work, medical treatment or academic studies.

The authors of the bill explained their initiative by appealing to moral principles: “We suggest that everyone starts with himself – a man must put both his feet here and must demonstrate that it is wrong to keep money in foreign banks, it is wrong to buy securities from foreign companies. This is not moral,” deputy head of the Lower House Constitutional Legislation Committee Vyacheslav Lysakov told business daily Kommersant.

The initiative came a week after two parliamentary factions – United Russia and Fair Russia – submitted a joint proposal that would require state officials to report foreign property on a special website.

One of the authors of the bill, deputy chairman of the Lower House Sergey Zheleznyak, suggested that such a move would be fairer, since a total ban could infringe on basic civil rights. Forcing the hasty sale of foreign property during the current economic crisis could also lead to substantial monetary loss.

Other deputies who opposed the bill say it will only lead to increased secrecy, not transparency.

The parliamentary initiative came when at least two top state officials were criticized for owning foreign assets. The head of the Russia’s top federal law enforcement agency – the Investigative Committee – was criticized by opposition blogger Aleksey Navalny and United Russia MP Aleksandr Khinshteyn for once owning a stake in a Czech law firm.A top opposition figure – Fair Russia MP Gennadiy Gudkov – was accused by the Investigative Committee of owning several companies in Bulgaria.

Russian law forbids state officials from entrepreneurship while on their posts, but does not limit their property rights.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Russian law forbids state officials from entrepreneurship while on their posts (NICE! ), but does not limit their property rights (not so nice . . . perhaps a property number limit based on necessity? The last thing the people need is a civil servant with a 3rd or 10th or more property to ‘hide asset with’ . . . ). As Putin once said, the law makers could ‘GET SERIOUS!’ This looks flawed as hell.

This ban on foreign property though, is a ‘Russian’ style development that the world could learn from. This way a plutocracy will not form within the bureaucracy. Karl Marx would approve. Russia in turn could learn about term limits . . . though Putin’s 3rd term is VERY Russian, but not the good type . . . a spy chief could do no less! Pulling the strings from the background would make Putin that much more fearsome, but being at the forefront diminishes the ‘fear factor’. One cannot glory hog and be a ‘Man in the Shadows’ or ‘Shadow Power Player’ as well at the same time (unless Putin is not the main man and someone pulls Putin’s strings instead . . . sweet . . . ). See below :

Commentator Comments :

On first reading, it sounded like a farce. On second thought, maybe its well and good if Russia wishes to dclare it criminal for Duma members to have assets in their name overseas. On third thought, it may be good intention but impossible to implement. There are too many loopholes to avoid this. One could use a company as a separate entity to own such assets; Even family members’ name with total Power of Attorney to the Duma member can achieve the same. Or money laundered from illicit or corrupt dealings back to Russia. The possibilities are many now that Russia has joined the WTO. Expect unholy partnerships and alliance between businessmen and politicians. The assets will find its way into the politician’s permanent usage or name or possession. No Duma bill will prevent . That is why I say some arguments or bills can descend into absurdity and removed from reality. Good try anyway if sincere. – Retired-auditor (Good Intentions & Reality (unregistered) August 03, 2012, 08:17)

Well, so be it. If it has to be Pakatan Rakyat then let it be Pakatan Rakyat. But it is we the voters who will be deciding which it is going to be. So why can’t we the voters demand what type of government we want? Our votes decide the government so that gives us the right to dictate the type of government that we want. And the type of government has to be a different and better government.

I have lost quite a number of friends and family to cancer over the last 60 years or so. Of late, many more seem to have left this world. Maybe this is because I am coming to 62 so at that age you tend to lose more people you know — which helps remind us that our time is coming up as well so we can consider ourselves as also standing in queue.

Anyway, what I find common to those who suffer from cancer is that most, if not all, do not give up hope. Even if the doctor has diagnosed the cancer as terminal they still harbour the hope that they can beat it somehow. I suppose that is the characteristic of humankind. We never lose hope even when logic tell us there is no longer any hope.

If we hear that a certain herb has been known to help cure the disease, even in cases where the doctor has said otherwise, and there are incidences where people have survived the cancer after taking that herb, much to the surprise of the doctor, we will surely try that herb and hope that the doctor is wrong and that the herb actually does work.

If we hear that a certain holy man in India has helped cure the disease, even in cases where the doctor said there is no chance of survival, and we are told that many people who went to meet the holy man managed to beat the disease, we will certainly make that trip to India in the hope that we are going to be amongst that group that beat the odds.

I have known friends who have travelled to so many places all over the world to seek miracle cures, mainly through spiritual help or ‘faith healing’, in spite of the medical prognosis that says there is no possibility of any cure. Of course, there are stories abound about how people have managed to prove the doctors wrong and that miracle cures or faith healing does work.

Unfortunately, not a single one of my friends managed to beat the odds. In the end they all died, as what the doctors said was going to happen. The miracle cures or faith healing did not work, in spite of the many stories that we hear about how they sometimes work.

I suppose no one likes to be told that they are going to die and that nothing can be done about it. Who likes to go home and just sit around or lie in bed with excruciating pain and count the days till you leave this world? To be told you have two months to live, or at the most six months but not longer than that, is so depressing. It is better that you psyche yourself into believing that there is still some hope you can cheat death by taking some sort of herb or by travelling to India, China, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, etc., to meet a ‘holy man’ who has been known to help cure people whom the doctors said cannot be cured.

It is bad enough you know you are going to die. But to accept the hopelessness of your situation and go without a fight makes the inevitable worse. It is less depressing to believe you have hope and work on that hope by seeking a solution. Who knows, the rumours might be true and the doctors might be wrong and you might be able to find that cure that the doctors said does not exist.

Never take hope away from anyone, especially from someone who is about to die, even if you know it is all false hope. When they excitedly tell you they are going to make a trip to India or China to meet a certain holy man who is said to have helped people beat the odds and managed to prove the doctors wrong, smile and encourage them and tell them that life and death is God’s will and if God wills it then they are going to live and not die in two months or six months or whatever it is that the doctor told them. It is most cruel to tell them, “This is all bullshit and you are going to die in the next few months so just accept that fact and don’t waste time with all this nonsense of miracle cures or faith healing.”

Religion is more or less about hope as well. We all know we are going to die. That is inevitable and unavoidable. The only question is when, how and where. It could be soon or it could be some years into the future. But the day we got born means we are certainly going to die. The only way to avoid death is not to be born. If we are not born then we can cheat death, so to speak.

But we still need hope. We know we have no hope of avoiding death. But we would like to know that death is not final. If death is final then what good is it to be born? Are we born just so that we can die? Isn’t life then totally useless? Why be born just so that we can die? What a total waste of time?

And the hope we harbour would be that death is not final but merely the beginning of a better life, a life after death. We leave this cruel world to go to a better world. What we will enjoy after we leave this world is far better than what we can ever experience in this world. Hence death should actually be rejoiced rather than mourned.

Now, if you tell someone that this is all bullshit, and that once you die it is the end of everything, that person will get very upset with you. He or she does not like to be told that death is final and that there is no better life after death. How can they accept that there is only one life, this life, and no second life, and that once you leave this world you leave forever and do not enter into another world or enjoy a permanent life after death?

This is, again, all about hope. We need to believe that there is still hope even when we die. To be told that there is no longer any hope once we die and that death is final and the end of everything and not the beginning of a second and better life is something most people cannot accept. It makes the entire concept of life totally useless. It makes the acceptance of death very difficult.

Hence if you tell someone that religion is nonsense and that what religion tells you is equally nonsense you will be met with vicious opposition. This is because you are denying these people hope. You are removing the only hope that they have. They know they have no hope of not dying. So they need to replace the hopelessness of their situation with another hope. And that hope is, while you cannot cheat death, death is not final and that life after death is greater than life on this earth.

The same applies to life in Malaysia. We have suffered life in Malaysia under the same government for 55 years. We would like to believe that this is not a hopeless situation. We would like to believe that there is still some hope. And so we hope that the government will change and that the next government will be a better government than the one we currently have.

Then someone comes along and says that this is all bullshit. This person says that there is no hope of changing the government or even if you can change the government life is still going to be the same and there is not going to be any change as you hope there would. You will get angry. And you will get angry because this person is taking away the only hope you have of seeing a better life.

Try telling a person suffering from cancer that the doctor is right and that this so-called holy man in India or China cannot help you live beyond two months and see the reaction. Try telling a person that the Bible or Qur’an is bullshit and that you are eventually going to die and once you die that is final and not the beginning of a new/better life and see the reaction. Try telling someone that all politicians are the same and never mind which government comes to power you are still going to see the same sorry state of affairs and see the reaction.

And this is why many people react the way they do when we point out the shortcomings and weaknesses of the opposition. They are harbouring the hope that a change of government would mean a better life. So when we tell them otherwise we are taking away this hope. They need hope, so they resent it when we take away this hope by telling them there is no hope.

Hope and reality work opposite to one another. The reality is: we are going to die of cancer within the next two months. The hope is: a holy man in a foreign land can help us cheat death. The reality is: once we die that is final and the end of everything. The hope is: death is not final but just the beginning of better things to come. The reality is: many countries change governments but life does not really improve much and sometimes even becomes worse. The hope is: once we kick out Barisan Nasional then Malaysia is going to become paradise on earth.

When I contradict your belief system and tell you to look at reality I am removing all this hope. I know this sounds cruel and denying you hope is just like telling you that you are going to die of cancer in two months — so save your money and don’t bother to fly all over the world to meet holy men — or like telling you that there is no afterlife for you to go to once you die because death is final.

If the doctor tells you that you are suffering from terminal cancer and are going to die in two months time I will not tell you that the doctor is right and that you should not try miracle cures or faith healing. That would be cruel. If you believe that there is a better afterlife where you will be going to once you die I am not going to tell you that this is religious bullshit because you need to believe this to be able to accept death.

In both these situations you need hope because hope is the only thing you have. So I will not take away this hope from you.

But in the issue of changing the government, now that is not a hopeless situation like terminal cancer or death. There is still hope that a change of government can result in a better life. But we need a better government to be able to see a better life. So I will barrage you and the politicians from both sides of the political divide that a change of government per se will not result in a better life. It must be the correct type of government.

I know it is not easy to accept reality. How many people can accept being told that they are going to die in two months time so just accept it and stop all this faith healing nonsense? How many people can accept being told that there is no such thing as an afterlife and once you die you are gone forever so live this only one life that you have while you still have it? And how many people can accept being told that a change of government will not automatically result in a better life unless we get the right type of government?

But someone has to do this job even though the person doing it is going to get cursed. As I said, I will not shatter your hope of beating cancer or of going to a better life after death, but I will certainly shatter your hope that a better life can be achieved through a change of government.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying we should not change the government. Many of you will interpret this as me saying just that. Yes, change the government by all means. Just make sure we get the right type of government so that our objective of a better life can be met.

In this case, you might say, we only have two choices, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. So it is either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. And if it is not Barisan Nasional then it has to be Pakatan Rakyat.

Well, so be it. If it has to be Pakatan Rakyat then let it be Pakatan Rakyat. But it is we the voters who will be deciding which it is going to be. So why can’t we the voters demand what type of government we want? Our votes decide the government so that gives us the right to dictate the type of government that we want. And the type of government has to be a different and better government.

Why is it so difficult for some of you to understand this very simple thing? And do I really need to write four pages to put this point across to you?

Yes, in the end this is all about hope. But there is a difference between false hope and hope tempered with reality. I am not selling false hope. I am selling hope tempered with reality. Hence from time to time we need to embark upon a reality check to get us back on track.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Again with the hegelian dialectic. Who says 3rd Force cannot be better than the above 2 coalitions? And don’t confuse state and religion much like politics and health. All of the issues are UNRELATED. Much like RPK tries to inculpate via allegory an inability to separate issues, the very same ability to separate issues can be used to keep one’s health better. When one thinks with the collective one gets the ailments of the collective. When one thinks as an individual, one will only get what one deserves. Collective hive mindedness is convenient but results in all kinds of incompatibilities in the astral and ethereal and this is the very cause of illness. Want to heal up to oneself? Stop parasiting the ideas of the original and be oneself – this is not easy and a luxury but do try or lose individuality.

The more individual one is, the better and healthier because everyone is different and one cannot be another without paying a price somehow. Also individuality is a mark of strength in this day of compromised and homogenised individuality. Pick your meme and stay with that. Faux-Hindu? Faux-Sheik? Greaser? Punk? Suit? Techie? Nerd? Nut? Gravitate to that which is most comfortable, the meme will do the rest WITH LOGIC the overreaching ‘law’. Generally one must learn to think and not follow blindly. Is the law as of now good? Is the MP amending bad laws? Is the MP overreaching 2 term limits to become a cult of personality? Does any democratic person not understand that nepotism destroy democracy? Does any Muslim who is fair minded think dhimmitude of other faiths help? Should hudud even be applied against democratic principles? Does anyone have the right to deny Nudist colonies if activities are in enclosed zones? Organics psychedelic bars? So mind our own business and make sure your lawmakers ensure living as one prefers in assigned spaces appropriate is possible, not drug, not poison and not manipulate into oblivion, and not sequester wealth, not sequester land, or not sequester political power, the country and the world belongs to everyone, so stop bothering who is LGBT or not of what faith or wants to do whatever . . . go against these cardinal rules and suffer the political or even revolutionary consequences. Therein lies one’s right over everyone else.

As for . . . The only way to avoid death is not to be born. . . . – that which one believes will occur to as far as one’s Will has been cultivated. Bubye Monotheists, and good riddance! The rest will doubtless also be treated to what they believe . . .

But not all the potential frogs crossed over in the end. Many did not, basically because they were asking for too much money to cross over. After I broke the story that Hee Yit Fong of Jelapang was paid RM25 million to cross over — the money paid by gambling tycoon Vincent Tan — all the others started demanding that same amount and were no longer prepared to accept less than a million, like what was paid to Badrul Hisham Abdullah of Port Kelang.

“Rafizi to replace Gwo-Burne?” said The Malay Mail, which you can read below. The Malay Mail then goes into a long two-page story about the issue. Actually, it is a very short and simple story. And I certainly support what PKR is trying to do, which is basically frog hunting. PKR is getting rid of the potential frogs.

If you can remember, three years ago, just before Perak fell back in 2009, I revealed that Umno is talking to a few potential frogs, in particular but not confined to those in PKR. Of course, at that time, what I said was pooh-poohed. Over time, though, we began to see the crossovers happen, one-by-one.

But not all the potential frogs crossed over in the end. Many did not, basically because they were asking for too much money to cross over. After I broke the story that Hee Yit Fong of Jelapang was paid RM25 million to cross over — the money paid by gambling tycoon Vincent Tan — all the others started demanding that same amount and were no longer prepared to accept less than a million, like what was paid to Badrul Hisham Abdullah of Port Kelang.

Okay, let us not talk about those who did eventually cross over. We have talked about them enough and you know who these people are — the ‘independent’ and BN-friendly wakil rakyat that includes Hee Yit Fong, Nasarudin Hashim, Jamaluddin Mohd. Radzi, Mohd Osman Jailu, Wee Choo Keong, Zahrain Mohamed Hashim, Ibrahim Ali, Hasan Ali, Zulkilfi Nordin, Badrul Hisham Abdullah, Keshvinder Singh, Fairuz Khairuddin, etc.

Let us instead talk about those who were supposed to have crossed over but eventually did not because Umno refused to pay them what they wanted. And the list of potential frogs that did not eventually cross over because Umno could not meet their price were:

Loh Gwo-Burne (Kelana Jaya)

S. Manikavasagam (Kapar)

Aziz Kadir (Ketereh)

Azan Ismail (Indera Kota)

Lim Soo Nee (Kulim)

Mat Suhaimi Shafiei (Sri Muda)

Amirudin Shari (Batu Caves)

Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid (Kuala Langat)

Rashid Din (Merbok)

Johari Abdul (Sungai Petani)

So, yes, many of these people, plus more, are quietly going to be dumped. Barisan Nasional does not want them because they are demanding too much and neither will Pakatan Rakyat field them in the next general election.

And that is the real reason why Loh Gwo-Burne is being replaced and not as The Malay Mail reported below.

***************************************

Rafizi to replace Gwo-Burne?

(The Malay Mail) – Will PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli contest in the Kelana Jaya parliamentary seat? Although he is tipped to contest in the Pandan parliamentary seat, some representatives of the Selangor government are lobbying for him to stand in Kelana Jaya.

Speculation is rife that Kelana Jaya MP Loh Gwo-Burne has a slim chance of retaining his seat.

According to one leader, Loh was not popular among the residents as he was “inactive” as an MP.

One community leader said he would rather not vote in the election if Loh defended his seat. “The problem is, we don’t see him at all. And he has done nothing so far,” said the resident.

“It is unfortunate because he was given a chance to do something but he has wasted it.”

Professional photographer Nazeerul Haqeem, 24, also said Loh’s presence was lacking in the constituency. “I think (Seri Setia assemblyman) Nik Nazmi (Nik Ahmad) is more of a people person. He has buka puasa events and dinners with residents,” Nazeerul said.

PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said, however, that Rafizi was already working on building his repertoire in Pandan, a seat firmly held by former MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat for two terms now. “At the moment, Rafizi is working hard in Pandan,” she said.

Asked if Rafizi had a better chance of winning in Kelana Jaya, Nurul Izzah said his recent prosecution under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 for disclosing banking details on the National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) scandal may serve to boost his reputation among the voters in Pandan.

“So (Datuk Seri) Ong Tee Keat should be less than confident in retaining his seat,” she said.

Nurul Izzah said the party would decide on the seat allocations “when it is ready”.

Loh was amused when told of the attempts to field Rafizi. “I spoke to Rafizi and he seems to be focused on Pandan,” he said.

However, he admitted that there was much to be done in the constituency, especially with regards to urban poverty, and said he would defend his seat.

“People from the poor areas like Desa Mentari are asking us to stay and help them,” Loh said. “Slums in areas like Glenmarie need a lot of attention.”

He said other major issues such as traffic problems and crime rates were also important but these matters fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

“I am not saying the federal government is not doing enough but such matters need at least five to 10 years to be resolved,” he said.

“The public transport system needs to be restructured, car ownership needs to be reduced, and crime rates need the attention of the police force.

“For me, I feel that tackling urban poverty is crucial because it will also stem the increase of crime.”

Meanwhile, Rafizi said although he had to wait for the party’s leadership to decide on the fielding of candidates, he was already preparing to contest in Pandan.

“I think the party’s approach right now is to field national candidates against strong Barisan Nasional (BN) candidates,” he said.

“I really appreciate the calls for me to contest in Kelana Jaya but comparing Kelana Jaya with Pandan, Pandan is the more difficult seat to win for Pakatan Rakyat (PR), so that is why I have to go to Pandan,” he said with a laugh.

Loh was among eight elected representatives from the Pakatan Rakyat allegedly offered a total of RM160 million to leave and become independent representatives. He made this claim at the Selangor state assembly on July 12.

The Pandan constituency has 78,128 voters, comprising 47 per cent Chinese, 45 per cent Malays and six per cent Indians.

Loh’s only claim to fame before 2008 was recording a conversation involving lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam allegedly interfering in the appointment of judges.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Thats just money, the pleasure of outing the corrupting MP or Minister and denying the MP or Minister power is much better. Also if all the MP’s ratify bills that license many gambling outlets instead of a single monopoly and creating an overgrown corruptor, these problems would not be here today. Most of us probably were not born even when the rubbish mindset or law/constitution that is government was put into place, and most of us need to put an end to this sort of citizen interaction and legislation and law writing, including term limitless MPs who collude or MPs trying to get there merely for power. Takes discipline to identify which MP is worth voting, those that do not respond to an intelligent question or a book full of CLEAN POLITICS to appreciate the local intelligensia with, are UNVOTABLE. But really there are virtually no role models excepting those who walk their own path sufficiently to think clearly and critically enough to initiate 3rd force movements. How about replicating this instead?

ARTICLE 15

Gov’t and party are different: ex-CID chief – Friday, 10 August 2012 08:45

Former Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department chief Fauzi Shaari has laughed off a proposal by prime minister Najib Razak for police to take oath of allegiance to the government. “The police must know how to differentiate between government and party. In voting, it is their right to choose the better party,” he said.

Fauzi, who recently joined PAS, described the call as unnecessary, and said if police treated their job as a religious obligation, they would put in their best efforts in their work.

At a buka puasa event, Najib again invoked his now infamous catchphrase “You help me, I help you” by calling the police to take an oath of loyalty.

“If the government helps PDRM (Malaysia Royal Police Force), then PDRM will help the government and the country. We help each other to bring the country towards a safer, harmonious and excellent future,” Najib was quoted as saying.

The remark drew strong reaction from northern-based Malay empowerment group TERAS who said it was Najib’s hidden instruction to the police to vote for BN.

“So, the oath is not so much about PDRM promising to be loyal to the government but a plea to all top officers to ensure that the votes from lower officers will go to BN,” said TERAS chairman Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid.

PAS Youth information chief Riduan Mohd Nor said Najib’s latest move signified the BN government’s fear of the increasing support for Pakatan Rakyat amid a slew of announcements of former top civil servants joining PAS.

“It has made a big impact to UMNO-BN for the 13th general election,” he added.

-Harakahdaily

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

That is why the military and police, EVEN civil service, should not be allowed to vote and remain neutral or not even be part of the voting numbers equation. See how the police and army have separate from the Rakyat, taxpayer dollarpaid for quarters? That is the trade off and sacrifice the police and army OWE the ordinary Rakyat which does not have the access or benefits or the authority they have. Simply to prevent vested interest.

Imagine if more and more citizens became police and voted for the government AND asked the government to give them more and more goodies out of taxpayer monies? What would happen to the Rakyat? If taken to extreme progression and expression, leads to a police state (Singapore or perhaps WW2 Nazi Germany) and/or a military (Junta) state. That is why ex-Pakistan President Musharaff LEFT the Military, that is also why Musharaff MUST NOT be President, that is why Putin’s 3rd term is not healthy (so far not in a violent manner given the treatment of the ‘Pussy Riot’ issue (perhaps contrived?) by Putin), but who knows what goes on behind the Iron Curtain which is impossible to say exists in some part even though Soviet Union has disbanded.

Meanwhile am with PAS Youth information chief Riduan Mohd Nor on this. PAS once again surpasses on ethics issues (how about slamming PR’s non-PAS top leadership for failing to keep 90% of campaign promises . . . ), BUT STILL Hudud is unjustifible! PAS would be a role model world wide if not an Islamist party. who knows 3rd Force might be able to do the same after all . . . in this case the police faction with this attituide is ‘Ethically Corrupt’ and begins to sound dangerous.

The regular taxpayers and citizens must never want to deprive the uniformed groups of jobs, at the same time they must understand that governments that are into things like Ops Lallang, or false flagging marches and riots that NEVER address apartheid or extreme religion, can very well be complicit in ‘seeding’ criminality via the ‘Prison-BuildingContractor-Prison-Supplier Complex’. The prison could well be a place where persons intentionally goaded into the odd criminal act or few, are introduced and indoctrinated by ‘insiders’ so that they can be released to commit petty crime that justifies MORE police who intentionally will be induced to secure ever larger blocs of votes with ‘Police Families’ being an Oligarchy and eventually democracy destroying Feudalism again.

Politics cannot mix with enforcement either or a non-meritocratic Gestapo will form, in the military’s case, a Junta. We might see 10th generation being given automatic promotions instead of by sheer merit, and favouritism and nepotism etc. will again ruin another pillar of government . . . I believe even the police internally know and do not want this, or those with a sense of ethics or morality would certainly not as well, and would prefer to stay above politics than frightening the Rakyat (this article’s information is mildly chilling against Najib’s ethics) with assent to this sort of ‘bloc vote’ mindset. PDRM should understand that if more police or benefits are needed, this should not be politically motivated. As so many active in the ‘scene’ police and criminals are from opposite sides of the same coin, and this sort of politics harms the pride of the institution of law enforcement no end.

ARTICLE 15.5
When a friend of my friend is my friend – NO HOLDS BARRED – Saturday, 18 August 2012

That was not how things were 50 years ago back in the 1960s. Back then we had a bond. And that bond was worth more than everything in this world. But we have now lost that. And we blame the government for the current sorry state of affairs. But we fail to see that honour and ethics have nothing to do with the government. It is what is inside us. And if we do not have it inside us then we can change the government every year for the next ten years and we will still not have it inside us.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

UMNO is as UMNO does? What **suffocating** and presumptuous language. Heres your establishment pawn Rakyat . . . ethos and pathos, also contrived cleverness in superficial linguistic acrobatics (IKIM does this occasionally) can only take an argument so far, BUT without *LOGOS*, no amount of charisma or twisting and turning can subvert those who work to keep the truth in the clear so the Rakyat can vote properly.

1) But we fail to see that honour and ethics have nothing to do with the government.

This normalizes dishonour and unethical behaviour.

2) It is what is inside us.

Heres RPK trying to remake the whole world in the Islamist mould AGAIN.

3) And if we do not have it inside us . . .

NO. Honourable and ethical law writing is needed. This ‘it inside us’ b.s. is Islamo-speak IMHO. Tricky aren’t them Muslims?

4) . . . then we can change the government every year for the next ten years and we will still not have it inside us.

Governement being changed every year is a moot point and strawman argument intended to distract.

REALLY RPK, you can dance circles around only so many people, disappointing attempt to subvert again! Do rebut otherwise, but an reader can corroborate the amount of nonsense previously posted and we only have an empty shell probably working for emptier shells and the wrong side . . .

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger speaks to introduce China’s Vice President Xi Jinping to leaders from the private and public sectors at a luncheon co-hosted by the US-China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations with the support of several cooperating organizations in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 15, 2012. (credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)
Henry Kissinger, pat down, TSA

NEW YORK (CBSDC) — Even a Nobel Peace Prize winner can’t avoid a pat-down.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger got searched by a Transportation Security Administration employee while going through a security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport in New York Friday, The Washington Post reports.

Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched.

“He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders,” freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. “They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was.” Cole added that Kissinger was given “the full Monty” search.

Kissinger negotiated the Paris Peace Accords which helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.

Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was detained at a Nashville airport after refusing to be searched by TSA officials.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

‘Even a Nobel Peace Prize winner can’t avoid a pat-down.’ Demogoguery? EVEN?!? Even a homeless bum has a right to refuse TSA pat downs either AND rather. We don’t care if Kissinger submits to TSA, nor does this justify the existence of the TSA.

A supposed ‘personality’ submitting to a pat down by TSA in a highly publicised and high profile feature on MSM, cannot speak for 99% of people who do not want that. If 99% of the people do not want that, TSA will not exist.Vote properly moron Americans. And who cares if Congress enjoys submitting to the TSA? TSA cannot speak for anyone who does not want their privacy invaded.

Theodora as Alison Montgomery in the series “The Bold and the Beautiful”, Photo: nypost.com

The youngest daughter of the last King of Greece Constantine, Theodora has begun her career in show business.

The episodes of the soap “The Bold and the Beautiful”, which is broadcasted in hundreds of countries,
started on Monday.

The 28-year-old blond princess who uses the name Theodora Greece appears as Alison Montgomery, secretary of Bill Spencer, whose role is played by Don Diamond.

The scene is as follows: Dressed completely in pink, she appears in Bill’s office, bringing a press kit featuring an alluring photo of his daughter-in-law Steffy, for whom he still has romantic feelings.

“Mr. Spencer, I wanted to drop this off to you,” says Alison. “This is the latest press kit for Forrester’s ‘Intimate’ campaign… I know of your interest in the subject matter,” she adds.

“Yes, my son’s wife. You can just put it down here – and you can go,” answers Bill Spencer.

The spokeswoman for the soap saga that has continued for decades now said that Theodora will appear in the role of Alison in other episodes and that she will have “meatier scenes”.

Apart from “The Bold and the Beautiful”, the Princess of Greece and Denmark appears as Peggy in the big screen remake of the popular, in the 60s, TV series “The Big Valley” with Jessica Lange and Richard Dreyfuss.

Theodora also plays in the film “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” and will appear in “Little Boy”, also starring Kevin James from King Queen and Emily Watson. The film is due out next year.

The princess dreaming of a career in Hollywood was born in 1983 and she is the next to the last child of the Greek royal family. She graduated in performing arts after two years at the Northeastern University in Boston and four years at Brown University, member of the so-called Ivy League. Now, Theodora is specializing at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. In April 2010, her mother Anna Maria confirmed the information that Theodora left for Los Angeles to start a film career.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Given the right fertile Grecian virgins, King Constantinos looks like he could still father childen every night for the next 3 decades. How about a few consorts or a harem to ensure the Greek Royal line does not die out ‘Conster’? This ‘last’ Greek King article is nonsense, father humanity a pantheon of Grecian princes Constantinos! Now THAT would be truly bold and beautiful. Any young Grecian ladies up for ‘national service’ as Royal Consorts? Greece needs a prince to continue the bloodline!

ARTICLE 3

Joan tweets in fury at Theresa May over Heathrow hold-up… And look out Home Secretary, she has 68,000 followers – by James Slack – PUBLISHED: 18:05 GMT, 15 May 2012 | UPDATED: 06:57 GMT, 16 May 2012

Joan Collins yesterday joined the attack on Britain’s shambolic border controls after getting stuck in a queue of ‘thousands’ of travellers at Heathrow.

The actress took to Twitter to complain about the delays to Home Secretary Theresa May.

Her intervention – read by her 68,000 followers – came as MPs were grilling the immigration minister about continuing chaos at Britain’s ports and airports.

Globetrotter: Joan Collins at Heathrow, left, and, right, at an event at the V&A Museum in London last night

Tweeting mad: Joan Collins went online to complain as soon as she arrived back in London

Miss Collins, 78, who fronted an advertising campaign for BA in the 1980s, said: ‘Arrived LHR after great trip on @British_Airways but 1000s waiting at passport control – listen up Ms. May – need more officers!’

Miss Collins flew in on a BA flight from Los Angeles that arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 at lunchtime. Airport staff said queues yesterday were not as bad as on Monday but they could ‘ebb and flow’.

Heathrow operator BAA said: ‘The queues have been markedly reduced in recent days since the problems at immigration became more high profile.’
Under fire: Theresa May has been attacked for cutting Border staff at Heathrow

Under fire: Theresa May has been criticised for cutting Border staff at Heathrow

Miss Collins’s comments overshadowed an attempt by ministers to get on the front foot over airport queues, which they sought to blame on a string of factors – including the wind.

Immigration minister Damian Green told the home affairs committee that even if all passport controls were fully manned, passengers could still face delays depending on the amount of time between arrivals.

He said: ‘That will depend on the wind, over which . . . airlines and the Border Force don’t have the control.’

Labour said: ‘At every turn this Tory-led Government wants to blame the wind, the weather – anything but themselves.

‘You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that if you cut the number of staff too far too fast, it will take longer to get people through immigration.’ In his evidence session, Mr Green attached some of the blame for queues to the airlines, saying three times as many passengers arrived at Heathrow on Monday morning than were expected.

On Friday, the Border Force was told to expect 2,500 passengers between 6am and 9am on Monday. This rose to 5,000 at six hours’ notice, but in reality 7,500 passengers turned up, said Mr Green.

‘The better the information the Border Force can have from the airlines, the more likely it is the right numbers of people will be at the right desks at the right time,’ he added.

But MPs criticised the way the borders are run. Committee chairman Keith Vaz said that, on a visit to Stansted Airport, he had seen passengers queuing from the passport desks to the plane.

Logjam: Passengers at Heathrow have faced long waits as the UK Border Agency struggles to process the numbers passing through passport control

Logjam: Passengers at Heathrow have faced long waits as the UK Border Agency struggles to process the numbers passing through passport control

Just half of the desks handling EU passengers, and a quarter of those for non-EU travellers, were staffed last Sunday.

Mr Vaz said: ‘Most of these were British holidaymakers. I felt pretty ashamed as a British MP watching them . . . trying to get back into the country.’

He pointed out that special electronic gates that allow pre-screened passengers to pass through were switched off at midnight each night.

This means passengers arriving in the early hours must join the regular queue instead.

No cure-all: Immigration Minister Damian Green, pictured at Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport, told MPs the scale of the problem would depend largely on landing times affected by wind

The runways at Heathrow will be used more flexibly for take-offs and landings in a trial aimed at cutting delays. Usually one runway is used only for take-offs, and the other for landings. But the trial, starting in July, will investigate if the runways can be used for both take-offs and landings.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Joan ‘F—in’ Collins can well afford a private jet and a private airstrip alongside so many Alec Baldwins and Gagas. Use that money to raise yourself above the ‘masses’ who need to use the TSA dominated airport entertainer plutocrats! Meanwhile the alternative to spare the locals the TSA abuses, is to have separate local airports which serve only local-to-foreign flights from ‘international only’ airports.

Security guards detain a demonstrating activist from women’s rights organisation Femen near the Euro 2012 trophy during its unveiling to the public in central Kiev May 12, 2012. The activist was protesting against prostitution during the upcoming UEFA Euro 2012 soccer tournament. Kiev is set to host the final match of the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. – Reuters pic
KIEV, May 12 – A Ukrainian women’s rights activist stripped to the waist and seized the Euro-2012 soccer trophy while it was on public display in Kiev today in a protest against the exploitation of women during the forthcoming championship.

The young woman, 23-year-old Yulia Kovpachik, strode up to the silver trophy, which was on display as a tourist attraction in central Kiev, ostensibly to be photographed alongside it like hundreds of other sightseers.

But she then pulled down her red T-shirt to reveal the words “Fuck Euro 2012” scrawled on her chest. As she grabbed hold of the cup with both hands, she was seized by security guards, who appeared to have had advanced warning of the protest.

They covered her with a sheet and took her off to a waiting police car.

The protest appeared to be the first action in a campaign against the championship by Femen, a Kiev-based women’s rights groups which regularly stages bare-breast protests in Ukraine – and sometimes beyond – to highlight what it sees as political injustice, social abuse and the exploitation of women in Ukraine.

Femen says Euro-2012, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland next month with the final in Kiev on July 1, will be a magnet for sex tourists – one of the group’s main targets.

Organisers expect Euro-2012 to attract about one million foreign tourists.

Conscious of Ukraine’s growing reputation as a new destination for sex tourism, Euro-2012 organisers say they are taking steps to curb prostitution during the month-long tournament.

After Kovpachik’s protest, Femen activist Olexandra Shevchenko told reporters: “We came here today to stop this Euro fan low-life from making a bordello out of Ukraine.”

City authorities have mounted the Henri Delaunay trophy – which weighs 7.6kg and is 60 centimetres high – in a temporary display area on Kiev’s Independence Square.

Hundreds of sightseers were queuing up under the blazing sun for souvenir photographs alongside it when Kovpachik staged her demonstration.

Independence Square itself will be the centre of a huge ‘fan-zone’ during Euro-2012, capable of holding tens of thousands of football supporters. – Reuters

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

I speak for the human rights conscious Johns who would never knowingly indulge in trafficked persons, and also for the consensual or lifestyle sex workers when I say to the Ukrainian ‘topless’ activists :

a) please leave mainstream adult services industry alone and do some real work by lobbying for legalising red light districts

b) help identify abusers by posing as prostitutes or getting your friends to pose a clients to ferret out trafficked and non-consensual persons in sex work

c) developing and funding quick and easy to use disease tests

; instead of running amok while naked against those poor football fans.

The Euro Soccer John influx is the equivalent of a ‘bonus’ for sex workers in any country. The state also should legalise prostitution and give insurance and pensions to those who have gone at regular levels for checkups and worked for a set period of years or have serviced a set number of clients – every 3000 should provide a single year of pension?

In many ways these women’s contribution to society is incalculable as they give the lower earners who cannot afford marriage some form of relaxation and a who knows a geisha (temporary wife) type relationship-friendship. Something to look forward to at the end of the work shift and socialise about. This is a different form of caretaking profession, for what ails the soul of poverty, much like nurses take care of the ill. Think through on the issues properly if you want to make a difference you topless feminists! Persecuting Johns is wrong. Persecuting those identified as traffickers is right. Running around naked instead of advocating nudist zones to run around naked in is also wrong.

I’d say ‘Femen’ in appearing naked among massive crowds is expressing a hidden desire for either nudist legal zones, legalised public sex venues or sex orgy clubs. Start a legal sex club based around orgies or legalise dogging and sex booths in red light districts for Ukraine. Do some real work not foment meaningless chaos (some chaos can be meaningful, but maybe this was a cry for ‘instructions’ that I now give . . . )! Gotta love those Freudian slips! Create the spaces for everyone FEMEN, not take spaces away from society! John-space in the form of Red Light Districts for consensual sex workers and their clients is NOT trafficking and does not deserve to be lumped together via poorly thought protests like these!

ARTICLE 5

Did Time’s breastfeeding cover go too far? – May 12, 2012

Was it just a desperate attempt to sell magazines?

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Time is overstepping into the territory of other magazines. That is the only offense. Losing focus Time? Breastfeeding is not exactly some Captain of Industry or Social or Religous figure. As for breastfeeding periods that is between mother and child to decide though if they do or do not, should not be something that is shared with the general public more so local community. TMI for some as Sandy Rios said, but no issue for others. To each their own. But Time?!? No. Time is NOT a maternity magazine.

ARTICLE 6

In the realm of the senses – Toshio Saeki, Japan’s master of erotic illustration, devours the world with his demented images of outre – by Stephen Lemons Thursday, Feb 8, 2001 8:33 PM UTC

Think of Toshio Saeki’s work as a gaping, red maw consuming all women (and some men), salivating over their bodies and licking them into a sexual frenzy before swallowing them whole, like giant pieces of sashimi (look up the term : Vore). Japanese schoolgirls in uniforms, elderly matrons with wrinkled skin, attractive young women in kimonos and the occasional horny businessman or samurai — all are sucked into Saeki’s imaginary, Jabba the Hut-like pie hole, forced down his rapacious gullet and chased back with copious quantities of sake.

Saeki, 66, is the godfather of Japanese erotica — the one illustrator in the frenetic, oversexed, comics-crazy nation whose imagination outpaces all others. For decades, the art cognoscenti of Japan and elsewhere have hailed him as a psychosexual dream weaver who traverses all taboos with oozing, bloody scenes of insatiable carnality. Now he’s being rediscovered by young adults in America and Europe for whom Japanese illustration, anime (animated cartoons) and manga (comic books) are perpetual sources of fascination.

Sexual incontinence is Saeki’s overriding theme. In collections of his drawings such as “Chimushi I & II” and “Toshio Saeki: The Early Works” (both published in Japan by Treville Co.), he has navigated the outer limits of sexual obsession with a monomaniacal intensity. In France, his monographs have sold more than 20,000 copies. And Last Gasp, Saeki’s distributor in the United States, has difficulty keeping his books in stock. “Chimushi,” a two-volume set issued in the mid-1990s, completely sold out its first run here and is now a collector’s item.

In Saeki’s bestiary, immense turtles, octopuses and slugs ravish ecstatic Japanese maidens. Japanese goblins, known as tengu, poke their crimson, Pinocchio-like proboscises into the vaginas of willing teenage girls. Pockmarked dwarfs with misshapen, encephalitic heads gangbang young virgins. And hideous, hirsute trolls gnaw on umbilical cords that are still attached to mother and child.

Just when you believe Saeki has shown you his most outré image, you turn the page and find additional macabre hallucinations of murder and lust. In one, a Japanese schoolgirl flies down a road on her bike, her haunches lifted in the air and her skirt flapping in the wind. She looks behind her in horror to see that her bicycle seat has morphed into a man’s groaning face. In another, a young woman sips green tea as she rubs the freshly decapitated head of a soldier against her genitals, his body still upright beside her. There are drawings of necrophiliacs humping corpses and of crazed onanists sawing limbs off others with which to masturbate.

Unusual sexual fantasies are certainly common in the world of Japanese manga and anime. And popular adult anime (sometimes referred to as hentai) such as “La Blue Girl,” “Imma Youjo: Erotic Temptress” and “Twin Angels” can be found on the Web as well as in video stores in major American cities.

In addition, a number of photographers and artists in Japan are renowned for their explorations of fringe sexuality. There’s Hajime Sorayama, whose cyberwomen appear regularly in Penthouse; Masaaki Toyoura, whose bondage photos can be viewed in various Larry Flynt publications; Yoshifumi Hayashi, the master of erotic pencil art, whose drawings delve into the nether regions of coprophilia; and Nobuyoshi Araki, the photographer whose book about the Tokyo sex trade, “Tokyo Lucky Hole,” is truly a pervert’s delight.

Still, Saeki is in a class all by himself. Erick Gilbert, an editor and Saeki expert at Last Gasp, points out that Saeki’s art transcends that of his contemporaries.

“It’s like the man has a direct link to his unconscious, and to the collective unconscious of the Japanese people,” says Gilbert. “He can mix myth, that dream quality and pure libido. There are very few people who do that. I remember one image of a child standing outside of his parents’ bedroom. His parents are sitting on the bed, and the man has his hands between the legs of the woman. But the woman, instead of having a vulva there, has a face, and the man’s fingers are inside its mouth. That’s a powerful image from the unconscious, the vagina dentata.”

Saeki’s work is quintessentially Japanese — from the ethnicity of his subjects to his portrayal of traditional housing with futons, tatami mats and sliding paper doors to his borrowing of various monsters from Japanese mythology. The theme of obsessive sexuality leading to madness and death is common in the film and literature of Japan, and there’s a long tradition of Japanese shunga, or erotic prints and paintings, that has been traced back at least to the ukiyo-e (floating world paintings) of the Edo period (1603-1867) in books such as “Sex and the Floating World” by Timon Screech. Screech’s book, for instance, contains shunga prints of vaginal inspections (with a cervix’s-eye view), dogs humping women and men with colossal, spurting cocks.

“If you look at Saeki’s art outside of its cultural sphere, you may be troubled by its violence. But once you go inside that cultural sphere, you know that this violence is well-understood, that ‘it’s only lines on paper,’ to quote cartoonist Robert Crumb. This extreme imagery of Japanese artists, and their characteristic need to go as far as possible, can be traced several centuries back to the so-called bloody ukiyo-e of the 19th century. A number of examples from that era are very violent — with characters being tied up and swords put to them. That’s part of this strain of art,” asserts Gilbert.

However, even in Japan, Saeki’s morbid aesthetic delicacies have earned him a reputation as an iconoclast. Speaking to me by phone from his isolated home in the mountains of Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, Saeki explains that he has run afoul of Japanese censors in the past.

“My books have received cautions from the local government agency that monitors such things,” says Saeki. “If you receive three cautions in a year, your book is prohibited from being sold in a bookstore. Of course, my publications have been unpopular with the police, but not enough to be banned. At one time, in the late ’70s to early ’80s, I couldn’t draw the schoolgirl images that are so popular now. Publishers were afraid to publish them. The media had labeled me ‘schoolgirl Saeki.’

“Today, such images are much more accepted. I’ve been lucky to have my work published in erotic publications as well as art publications. Not all artists who do this kind of work have been accepted in both circles. Not that I’m a household name or anything. It’s interesting, when I have a new book come out, most of the fan mail my publisher receives is from doctors, lawyers and college professors. [Laughs] I find that very amusing.”

Saeki perceives himself as connected to Japan’s shunga tradition. He mentions an artist of the Meiji period, Yoshitoshi, who did the same kind of work. And he cites ukiyo-e artist Hokusai’s famous image of a woman having sex with an octopus, which he did not copy directly, he says, though he was aware of the reference he was making. But Saeki was not always a maestro of shunga art. Rather, his evolution into the most important erotic Japanese artist of his generation occurred haphazardly.

Saeki grew up mostly in Osaka. He studied art in high school, and after graduating pursued graphic design. He worked briefly for an advertising company, but disliked the job. At 24, he took off for Tokyo to try his hand at freelance illustration. With money he had saved, he holed up in a small apartment to develop his portfolio. It was then that he seriously began to create erotica.

“I did some fantasy erotic drawings and put to paper some scary dreams I remembered from my childhood. The images just flowed. During my teenage years at the art high school, many of the boys had an interest in erotic art. I was good at copying shunga, and the other boys would ask me to draw dirty pictures. I became quite popular because of it. So these images were in the back of my mind. I think it’s just my personality. When I was a teenager, there were boys who noticed when the wind blew girls’ skirts up and those who didn’t notice at all. Well, I was a boy who noticed,” says Saeki.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Saeki did illustrations for a then popular Japanese youth magazine, Heibon Punch, and from there his career took off. Galleries started showing his work, and he published his first books. Underground writers and artists hailed his outlandish creations, and to this day he retains the fanatical devotion of erotic art aficionados.

Late LSD guru Timothy Leary penned an introduction to “Chimushi I and II,” describing the artist as an “erotic engineer” who “weaves webs of designed dementia.” Yet Saeki himself realizes that his audience is limited, especially in the relatively repressed United States. But this might be changing.

“There’s a new generation interested in Japanese things now, especially Japanese animation. For instance, there’s a writer in New York who plans to use one of my paintings on a book cover, and there was a rock festival recently in California that used one as a giant backdrop,” he says. “I’m also getting more calls for gallery shows in America, so my work is receiving more exposure there now.”

I wonder aloud if Saeki is a sex maniac. After all, why does he always paint and draw images filled with sex and death?

“Hmm, why do I?” he asks, pausing for a moment. “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess I’m just mischievous and like to surprise people. I don’t really do art for self-expression. I’m more conscious of the people who see my work. I see it as a form of entertainment. It can’t be boring; it must be entertaining. The more I produce the work, the more I want to top myself each time, to shock people even more. I’m not a violent person myself. I don’t engage in the morbid acts I depict.”

Stephen Lemons is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to Salon. He lives in Los Angeles.

A night at the vibrator museum : Early vibrators were hand-cranked, two-person jobs — and prescribed by doctors. How far we’ve come since then – by Tracy Clark-Flory – Sunday, May 20, 2012 12:00 AM UTC

[A night at the vibrator museum] (Credit: Antique Vibrator Museum)

I can now say that I’ve used a turn-of-the-century vibrator — on my hand, but still.

The silver, hand-cranked contraption is usually kept behind glass at Good Vibrations’ Antique Vibrator Museum in San Francisco — but staff sexologist Carol Queen made a rare exception. “This is very special,” she whispered, unlocking the case and carefully pulling out Dr. Johansen’s Auto Vibrator, a relic from 1904. The “auto” part is not so much: It was a two-person job, with her having to crank the device’s handle to get it thrumming. Pressing my finger tips to its inch-wide circular platform of pleasure, I was pleasantly surprised by its power.

As I was by the two other vintage vibrators that I got to try out — the White Cross Electric Vibrator from 1917, which has a pronged aperture that makes it seem like the ancestor of Jimmyjane’s Form 2, and the Beautysafe Vibrator from the 1940s, which is reminiscent in look, feel and sound to a car waxer.

The U.S. release this week of “Hysteria,” a Maggie Gyllenhaal flick about a Victorian-era doctor who invents an electric massager and uses it to bring about “paroxysms” of relief in female patients with “hysteria,” seemed like a good excuse to get a private tour of the museum, which provided vibes that appear in the film, to learn about the history that’s left out of the movie’s fictionalized story line — and, of course, to try out antique pleasure devices while on the clock.

While the movie is set in the 19th century, doctors’ “manual manipulation” as a treatment for female hysteria goes back as far as the second century. “That took too long,” said Queen. “So doctors started training midwives to do it.” In Rachel P. Maines’ “The Technology of Orgasm: ‘Hysteria,’ the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction,” she quotes a 1653 medical book that advises:

When these symptoms indicate, we think it necessary to ask a midwife to assist, so that she can massage the genitalia with one finger inside, using oil of lilies, musk root, crocus, or [something] similar. And in this way the afflicted woman can be aroused to the paroxysm.

Of course, this paroxysm was orgasm, but it was rarely acknowledged as such. Instead, it was said to be the exorcism of hysteria, a vague, catch-all diagnosis for female ailments thought to arise from a displaced uterus or, charmingly, a “wandering womb.” “Some of these women probably had PTSD, some of them were overworked, some of them had extreme stress in their lives, some of them almost certainly had sexual issues going on,” Queen explains. As Maines points out, “many of its classic symptoms are those of chronic arousal: Anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasy, sensations of heaviness in the abdomen, lower pelvic edema, and vaginal lubrication.” Married women were often given the prescription of sex with their husbands.

Eventually, doctors turned to technology to speed up the laborious treatment. “It started with hydraulic devices, water jets, but that really only worked well at spas,” said Queen. In 1869, an American physician patented the Manipulator, a padded table with a steam-powered vibrating mound that rested between the legs. A decade later, British physician Joseph Mortimer Granville – who’s at the center of “Hysteria,” albeit heavily fictionalized — patented a battery-operated vibrator for treatment of muscle pain. Interestingly, he was vehemently against the device being used for hysteria. He wrote, “I have avoided, and shall continue to avoid the treatment of women by percussion, simply because I do not wish to be hoodwinked, and help to mislead others, by the vagaries of the hysterical state.”

Ads selling vibrators as home appliances began to appear in women’s magazines, often showing “women in attractive nightclothes, using it on their chest,” Queen said. “You see facial massage shown from time to time.” These spots referred to them as “aids that every woman appreciates” and promised “all the pleasures of youth … will throb within you.” But when vibrators started showing up in stag films in the 1920s, the ads started to disappear, Queen says.

“Within the next 10 years or so, the doctors close up shop,” she said, perhaps in part because it became impossible to deny the sexual nature of these therapies. “In 1952, hysteria is taken out of medical books,” Queen explained. “The medical associations voted to say, ‘Nothing to see here, there’s really not a disease – no, no, no, we haven’t been treating this with clitoral and vulva massage.’”

Vibrators were still sold direct to consumers, but manufacturers made no mention of hysteria and instead “talked about body massage and vague promises of health, vigor and beauty.” The ’60s did away with the subtlety and euphemisms: Maines explains in her book, “When the vibrator reemerged during the 1960s, it was no longer a medical instrument; it had been democratized to consumers to such an extent that by the ’70s it was openly marketed as a sex aid.”

Asked whether doctors or patients saw the treatment as sexual, Queen said, “One of the schools of thought is, ‘How could they not?’ They’re touching the genitals, she starts to sweat and flail around and vocalize and her breathing changes and she gets a flush.” But others argue that “the definition of sex and sexual functioning for a woman was so associated with intercourse,” it was so male-centric, that this treatment, which was most often external, wasn’t seen as sexual. As Maines puts it, “Since no penetration was involved, believers in the hypothesis that only penetration was sexually gratifying to women could argue that nothing sexual could be occurring when their patients experienced the hysterical paroxysm during treatment.”

Paradoxically, Queen explains that hysteria was overtly linked to sex “in that they said women without husbands who were spinsters or widows or whose husbands had become incapacitated were more likely to suffer from it,” she said. “So there was a subtext of, ‘What this lady needs is a good fuck and, sadly, she can’t have one — but this is the next best thing.’” Maines attributes the demand for the treatment to two sources: “The proscription on female masturbation as unchaste and possibly unhealthful, and the failure of androcentrically defined sexuality to produce orgasm regularly in most women.”

We haven’t exactly escaped the expectation that women should be able to climax from penetration alone, but we’re slowly improving on that front — and the mainstreaming of vibrators has played a big part. That point was only driven home as I left the museum, which is located in the back of a Good Vibrations store, and walked past scores of sleek and sexy toys in every color of the rainbow, all unabashedly advertised as what they are: Tools for sexual pleasure.

mike@vibratormuseum.com is going to be a very rich person if this concept is turned into a must have franchise in every RLD worldwide . . . how’s that ‘Legalisation of RLD drive for International Cities‘ world wide movement coming along? FEMEN wanna join in on this?

ARTICLE 8

On the rack: A cultural history of breasts : Did breasts evolve for lactation or to enhance sex appeal? A new book explores why they matter – by Tracy Clark-Flory – Thursday, May 10, 2012 12:00 AM UTC

It’s hard to be boobs. Sure, breasts are cherished as givers of milk and the pinnacle of sex appeal, but the modern world hasn’t been good to mammaries.

As Florence Williams writes in “Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History,” they’re the most tumor-prone organ in the human body. They “soak up pollution like a pair of soft sponges,” and transmit environmental toxins to babies through breast milk. “Breasts are bellwethers for the changing health of people,” she says. While we’ve “genetically modified our crops to be able to protect them from the ill effects of pesticides,” Williams writes, “we haven’t yet figured out how to modify our breasts.” Aside from using saline and silicone, of course.

Speaking of, breast implants are more popular than ever: It’s the most common form of plastic surgery, above even nose jobs and liposuction. Even cosmetic enhancement notwithstanding, breasts are bigger than ever, and girls are getting them at increasingly younger ages. These recent dramatic changes are the heft of Williams’ book, although she also covers evolutionary basics, like why we have them, what they’re made of and how they work. It’s an interesting and engaging read peppered with factoids the kid from “Jerry Maguire” would no doubt appreciate (e.g., “the average breast weighs just over a pound”). Occasionally, it veers into technical territory that will put some readers to sleep, but overall it’s a much-needed look at why breasts matter more than we realize, even in our boob-obsessed society.

I spoke with Williams by phone about the myth of the perfect pair, growing bra sizes and toxic breast milk.

One of the trickiest questions posed by the book is the simple one of why breasts exist. After all of your research, where do you stand on that question?

It’s a pretty contentious debate and surprisingly so. I think both sides have some biases and also some logic behind them, but where I see it coming down is between natural selection — like, “Are these breasts for women and their babies?” — or sexual selection, as in, “Are they signals for men?” Ultimately, I really fall down on “Let’s look at how breasts work and what they’re made out of.”

So, for me, it made sense that these are naturally selected organs, which is true for mammary glands in every other mammal that we know of. There are no other mammals in which breasts are sexually selected. It just makes sense that in our deep evolutionary past we really needed those extra few percentages of fat, and breasts gave us a place to put that, and really helped gestate and lactate the human infant, which has these unique fat requirements. The mammary gland in the breast in humans is filled with estrogen receptors and those actually make fat. There’s this relationship between fat and estrogen, and where there’s estrogen, that’s going to tell cells to start storing fat, and as there’s more fat, that’s going to help make more estrogen.

So it’s possible that breasts are the result of natural selection but they also play their part in sexual selection?

Yeah, absolutely. There’s no doubt at all that a lot of men are really, really attracted to breasts! But it could be that that attraction came later or was secondary, and it’s never really been satisfactorily proven that all men in all cultures across all times are obsessed with breasts.

It so totally goes against common wisdom, but it’s common wisdom that hasn’t been proven?

It hasn’t been proven. In fact we have such strong cultural biases about breasts that it’s easy to see how some of these anthropologists may just be projecting their own beliefs back into evolutionary times, and that’s just a classic no-no. We don’t really have fossil evidence of when breasts evolved because you can’t dig up a fossil of an early human and know what her cup size was.

So, there’s no “perfect” breast in terms of male sexual preference?

Well, certainly Hollywood and plastic surgeons would like us to believe that there’s a universally preferred large breast, but the evidence just doesn’t really bear that out. There are a lot of men out there who like small- or medium-size breasts, and there are some men out there who don’t seem particularly interested in breasts. In fact, breasts are so varied in humans that if there really was this evolutionary or even sexually selected preference for large breasts, you’d think we’d see a lot more of them. Women with small breasts are just as capable of nursing infants and that’s why those traits persisted.

Speaking of plastic surgeons: You actually had one evaluate your own breasts for the book. What was that like?

It was really bizarre and funny. I always thought my breasts were sort of perfectly fine. I kind of went in there thinking, “Oh, he’s gonna tell me that, ‘Congratulations, your breasts are fine,’ because he’s this great judge of breasts and presumably he’s seen all these incredible deformities.” I walk in there and take off my robe and he squeezes me and squishes me and pulls out a measuring tape and gives his final pronouncement, “Well, let me just say you would be a perfect candidate for augmentation.” I had to just crack up. So much of that industry is about the soft sell — they’re just so good at making women think that they’re not good enough the way they are.

When did breast implant mania really begin?

The first silicon breast implant was performed in 1962, so 50 years ago. It was up and running pretty quickly after that. It was particularly popular among women who made their living onstage — the go-go dancers and the burlesque dancers and the topless dancers and then Hollywood. Eventually it leaked into the broader culture, and certainly by the ’70s and ’80s women were going for this. Then there was the implant scare of the ’90s, in which a lot of women had problems with their implants, and the FDA actually banned them for 14 years. But now they’re back; they’ve never really been proven to be linked to disease or cancer. In fact, more women are getting implants now than ever before — over 300,000 a year.

And breasts are getting bigger in general, not simply because of plastic surgery. What’s going on there?

The main factor there is, of course, the American diet. Women’s bodies are getting bigger and their breasts are getting bigger along with it. Men are getting bigger, too! In fact, men are getting breasts more often and male breast reduction surgery is becoming more and more popular.

There also may be other factors at play that have to do with hormones in food and birth control pills and in hormone replacement therapy, and of course we have all these estrogenic chemicals in our environment. All of those things appear to be interacting with our breasts on some level.

I would say similar reasons. We don’t know for sure, but it appears that diet is the major factor there. Girls are sort of undergoing what’s sometimes called over-nutrition. A third of kids now are overweight or obese. You’re also seeing skinny girls getting breasts earlier, so the obesity theory does not seem to fully explain the phenomenon. There are researchers out there that have tried to examine the role of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but the jury is still out.

Turning to the function of breasts for feeding infants, one of the purposes of breasts that’s not actually up for debate: How and why did lactation evolve?

Lactation evolved 200 million years ago, even before there were mammals as such. It evolved in the precursor to mammals, probably not as a food but as an anti-infection substance. It helped fight pathogens and helped the immune system, and many of those qualities have been conserved. Breast milk today is not just filled with nutritional substances but it’s filled with these immune system-boosting substances that scientists are just beginning to understand. There are proteins and enzymes and complex sugars that are really quite amazing at inhibiting parasites and killing E.coli on contact. It also seems to be filled with bacteria too, and so it may be inoculating the infant’s immune system or educating it as to which bacteria are good and which are bad.

It’s an amazing, complex, highly evolved substance. It’s the only food on the planet that’s really meant to be eaten by humans.

It seems that nearly everything breast-related is controversial and lactation is no exception. What’s your position on the breast-is-best debate?

Really, throughout human history there have been women who just didn’t want to breast-feed, and I totally get it. Breast-feeding can be really hard. One of the earliest professions was not prostitution but actually being a wet nurse.

Certainly in Western societies it’s really safe to be raised on formula. Where you see the more dramatic benefits from breast milk are with preemies; they do much, much better. When you go to developing countries where the water isn’t safe, formula isn’t a great option, and you can really use these extra immune-boosting benefits because of these pathogen rich environments. It makes sense from a public health standpoint to really advocate breast milk in developing countries. In our country, what would be great is to really support women who want to breast-feed through better workplace policies.

We see negative entities in breast milk as well. The weight of the book is devoted to ways that our breasts are, as you write, “the catchment for our environmental trespasses.” Why are we seeing toxins show up in breasts and breast milk, of all places?

A lot of these substances, if they exist in the breast they also exist in the blood and in a lot of cells in our body. But many of them are attracted to fat and our breasts are among the fattiest organs we have next to our brains. So breasts are these soft sponges and they soak up a lot of things in our environment. They’re incredibly good at converting these substances into breast milk. It’s a little creepy.

What about the transmission to nursing babies?

It appears that the benefits of breast milk still by far outweigh the risks, and even though we have these unnatural substances in our breast milk it still exists for the most part in small quantities. Nonetheless, we don’t really understand what the health effects of this are. It seems wise to look harder at these chemicals. If they’re not proven safe, maybe we should try to use something else. It would be great to provide greater incentives for manufacturers to put safer chemicals on the marketplace.

I’m so curious what you think of sexualized attempts at raising awareness about breast cancer — ads like the “Save the Boobs” PSA, which pictured a pair of bouncing bikini-clad breasts, and the explosion of “I (heart) boobies” bracelets.

I guess the sexualization of breasts is a reality and we’re not going to change that any time soon. I did like that those ads tried to reach a younger audience, so there you have it. Breasts are filled with contradictions and conflicting messages, but the more we can understand their complexity and appreciate that complexity, the (psychologically) healthier we’ll be down the road.

Korean pornstar Minkaxxx poses size KKK polypropylene breast implants . . . in a few years the next generation of pornstars will be GROWING 100% natural flesh and blood implants from their own cells . . . somethings (breasts) never go out of vogue . . . (photo copyright belongs to respective owners) Minka has left an impressive body of work and at a stated age of 51 and probably has retired . . . how about setting up a Playboy mansion in Korea’s RLD eh?

Marchers make their way along a street in downtown Moscow during a demonstration led by opposition literary activists. Around 10 000 people took part, skirting the law by remaining silent and carrying no posters.

Moscow – Almost 10 000 people staged a mass “stroll” through central Moscow on Sunday to test the state’s tolerance a week after police beat and scattered demonstrators upset over Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.

With few police in evidence, demonstrators gathered at a statue of revered poet Alexander Pushkin and walked down Moscow’s Boulevard Ring to the site of an Occupy-style, 24-hour protest two kilometres away. Police took no action.

“We are all here because we want justice in the country, we want an honest transition of power, we don’t want a throne succession,” said Nina, 45, a foreign language teacher who gave only her first name.

President from 2000-2008 and prime minister until his inauguration to a six-year Kremlin term on May 7, Putin has angered Russians who want change and fear the continuation of his rule will bring stagnation and repression.

Some 10 000 people turned out for the “test stroll”, some wearing white ribbons reading “Russia without Putin”.

It took place a week after police clashed with demonstrators on the eve of Putin’s May 7 inauguration, beating some on the head with batons in the worst violence since a series of protests started in December.

Riot police detained more than 400 people at the May 6 protest and hundreds more on inauguration day, when they cleared streets near the path of Putin’s convoy of peaceful protesters and bystanders, and grabbed people sitting at a sidewalk cafe.

Following the crackdown, Boris Akunin, a popular detective novelist who has become a Kremlin critic, called for the event on Sunday to test whether Muscovites would be allowed to peacefully walk in their city.

The unsanctioned mass walk snarled traffic – and a woman handing out white ribbons advertised them as “free tickets to a police van ride” – but police left demonstrators alone and there were no reports of detentions.

“There are no police vans here, no police, no helicopters. They really let us walk free in the city now,” said Nina.

Demonstrators ended their walk at the site of a round-the-clock protest dubbed Occupy Abai, named after a monument to a Kazakh poet that is its focal point. Akunin was met with applause at the monument and declared the stroll a success.

“We can all congratulate each other, we have re-established a law. In Russia, there is a law protecting demonstrations,” Gennady Gudkov, a lawmaker with the opposition Just Russia party, told the crowd. “It was forgotten and now it is revived.”

The turnout on Sunday will please opposition leaders eager to maintain momentum, but the fate of the round-the-clock protest – where the crowd has numbered from dozens to 2 000 – is unclear.

Putin, 59, has largely ignored the unrest that greeted his inauguration, the latest since anger boiled over in December over allegations of fraud in a parliamentary election.

But his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has been quoted as saying that the police had acted too softly and has hinted the round-the-clock protest could be dispersed.

Gudkov’s son, Dmitry, also a lawmaker, invited people to meet on Tuesday by a Karl Marx monument near the Kremlin and said the round-the-clock protest would continue until at least June 12, when the next big opposition rally is planned. – Reuters

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The same 10,000 people should go round collecting voters to displace MPs who put Putin in power. What does this march achieve? Nothing on paper, nothing in black and white. Please use the legal and binding method. Marching peacefully or violently really does nothing legally! Civilisation and ousting of dictators is via laws, not migrations and cirumambulations.

One of America’s busiest airports, Orlando Sanford International, has announced it will opt out of using TSA workers to screen passengers, a move which threatens the highly unpopular federal agency’s role in other airports across the nation.

“The president of the airport said Tuesday that he would apply again to use private operators to screen passengers, using federal standards and oversight,” reports the Miami Herald.

With Sanford International having originally been prevented by the TSA from opting out back in November 2010 when the federal agency froze the ability for airports to use their own private screeners, a law passed by the Senate last month forces the TSA to reconsider applications.

Larry Dale hinted that the move was motivated by the innumerable horror stories passengers have told of their encounters with the TSA, noting that the change was designed to provide a more “customer friendly” operation.

The agency has been slow to reissue the guidelines on the the rule change, prompting Republican Representatives John Mica of Florida, Darrell Issa of California and Jason Chaffetz of Utah to press TSA head John Pistole to implement the mandate.

Appearing at Orlando Sanford International yesterday, Mica said he had written to 200 airports advising them of the opportunity to op out of using TSA screeners.

Orlando Sanford is in the top 30 busiest airports in the world, with large numbers of takeoffs and landings.

The TSA has been keen to downplay the opportunity for airports to dispense with their screeners, fearing a mass exodus that could undermine the justification for the agency’s continued existence, especially given the fact that its reputation has been repeatedly savaged by a number of scandals.

The most recent controversy involved a viral You Tube video created by engineer Jon Corbett which demonstrated how the TSA’s body scanners were virtually useless because they are unable to detect objects carried on the side of the body carried in a pocket.

The TSA responded by threatening the media not to cover the issue while putting out a blog statement that completely failed to rebut the claims made by Corbett.

A November 2010 poll found that the TSA’s “enhanced pat downs,” some of which include touching genitalia, angered 57% of regular adult fliers.

West Yellowstone Airport in Montana has already replaced its TSA screeners with private security. Bert Mooney Airport, also in Montana, is attempting to do the same.

However, when Texas lawmakers attempted to pass a bill last year that would have outlawed invasive TSA pat downs, the feds threatened to implement a blockade that would have imposed a defacto “no fly zone” over the lone star state.

Kicking out the incompetent, criminally-inclined and abusive TSA across the nation will not only encourage millions of peeved Americans to start flying again, pumping much needed money into the travel industry, it will also create thousands of new private sector jobs.

TSA Harasses and Gropes Quadruple Amputee

*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars

Nightly News.

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How many years before this airport decided to opt out? Better late than never, so good work on leading the pack Orlando Sanford International . . .

ARTICLE 2

Should your child be spanked at school? – by Yunji De NIES – Good Morning America ABC News)

It is one of the most controversial methods of child discipline, but spanking in school — usually with a wooden or fiberglass paddle — is still allowed by law in 19 states. The practice is most prevalent in the Midwest and South. According to a report from the Juvenile Information Exchange, more than 28,500 students in Georgia were spanked in 2008, mostly in rural counties. The number is much smaller in Florida — around 3,600 last year — but that’s where the issue is getting new attention.

For the second year in a row, a Florida lawmaker is trying to ban corporal punishment in schools there; last year the measure never made it to the floor for a full vote.

Opponents of the ban say spanking is matter of tradition and good old-fashioned discipline. But at least one Florida mom is suing to stop the practice. Tenika Jones says the principal at the Joyce Bullock Elementary School in Levy County paddled her 5-year-old so severely last April that he cried for hours, triggering an asthma attack, which in turn required a trip to the emergency room.

The boy was spanked for roughhousing with another student on a school bus. Jones said her son had welts on his buttocks, missed a week of school and still has nightmares about the incident.

“That’s child abuse to me,” the 32-year old told reporters, “If they don’t want us to hit our kids, they shouldn’t either.” Principal Jaime Handlin declined to comment, citing the on-going legislation, but she did tell the Willston Pioneer newspaper that “nothing was violated.”

She added, “I disciplined out of love, not anger.”

Researchers have found that spanking can increase aggressiveness in children and can even hurt the mental development of young children.

“Corporal punishment doesn’t get us the results we want,” said Deborah Sendek, program director of the Center for Effective Discipline, a group that advocates against corporal punishment. “You can get the same result from an intervention – simply telling and teaching children to stop the behavior.”

Sendek says the practice is not only ineffective, it can also teach children that hitting is acceptable. Sendek, who has worked in with abused and neglected children for three decades, says children who are hit ultimately learn to avoid the punisher, not the behavior.

She cited a number of instances in which children were seriously injured and asked why so many American children are subject to this type of punishment.

“We’re not allowed to hit a prisoner. We do not hit in the military,” Sendek said, “Why do we give prisoners more protection than we give our schoolchildren?

Even if parents do not agree with corporal punishment, there is little they can do, if a school district permits it, to guarantee that their child will not be hit by an administrator if she or he misbehaves. Sendek says her group suggests that parents who want to opt out of that type of discipline should send a letter to the principal and school administrators at the beginning of each school year, and make sure that their concerns are put in the child’s permanent record. She also recommends reviewing the school district’s disciplinary policies and voicing any concerns at parent/teacher conferences or school board meetings before a child is ever hit.

Beating of children if allowed by school should be the parent’s choice not the state’s choice and separate schools should be built for parents who opt out in these states. Opt out options are a sign of civilised law writing, not for a mob minded ‘majority’ to impose upon parents who do not want their kids to be beaten by the school. Then there is the issue of a child reaching sufficient cognisance to opt out regardless of age but rather by a psyche test to determine if that child is socially mature enough to CHOOSE to opt out. A child is also a person, and though not yet biologically mature, may be mature enough to decide what ANOTHER PERSON does to their body. Classes could be held to inform children on their rights to opt out for a start if the 19 states involved in beating kids at schools wish to be U.N. Charter’s Child Rights compliant.

Guess how much these days? Don’t even think about the 3rd world, there are 5 star restaurants where meals are cheaper . . . PRICE CONTROLS please. Or is there a F&B grouping ready to take up the challenge of reviving the $0.99 standard and sweeping aside any fast food chains not 99% worthy?

Reminds you of the TSA or prison system in the USA (see below article)? Does that come with a Green Card? Nope can’t migrate to USA unless worth 100s of 1000s . . .

TSA could be like this when they drop the human factor . . .

All thats missing here in this clip is an automatic crotch grabber. First MJ grabbed his own in 1984, then the TSA grabbed everyone else’s who used airports in 2002, in the future under this sort of automated setting there will be robots grabbing crotches in place of human TSA personnel in 2100, if the American voters don’t vote the right Congressmen (Rand Paul’s January 2012 brush with the TSA just a flase flag? Heard no follow up after the effective cop-out at Nashville Airport . . . and TSA is still around . . . ), Governors and President . . .

(AP) KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warned the U.S. is “slipping into a fascist system” dominated by government and businesses as he held a fiery rally Saturday night upstaging established Republican Party banquets a short distance away.

The Texas congressman drew a couple thousand standing and chanting people to Kansas City’s Union Station as the party’s establishment dined on steak across the street at the Missouri GOP’s annual conference. Kansas Republicans were holding a similar convention in a suburb across the state line.

Paul staged his rally near the nation’s World War I museum, asserting that the U.S. got off track about 100 years ago during the era of President Woodrow Wilson, who led the nation through World War I and unsuccessfully advocated for the nation’s involvement in a forerunner of the United Nations.

“We’ve slipped away from a true Republic,” Paul said. “Now we’re slipping into a fascist system where it’s a combination of government and big business and authoritarian rule and the suppression of the individual rights of each and every American citizen.”

Although campaign aides were aware, Paul told reporters after his speech that he did not know his rally was coinciding with long-established Missouri and Kansas Republican Party events, where Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell — a vice presidential prospect — was the keynote speaker.

Several Republicans slipped away from the banquets to join the Paul rally. Among them was Ralph Munyan, a Republican committeeman in Kansas City’s home county, who said he agreed with Paul’s warnings of a “fascist system” and his pledge to the end nation’s involvement in wars overseas and against drugs.

“His foreign policy is one of peace,” Munyan said.

Paul repeatedly denounced President Barack Obama’s recent enactment of a law requiring military custody of anyone suspected to be associated with al Qaeda and involved in planning an attack on the U.S. Obama said when he signed the legislation that his administration would not authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens without a trial.

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Guess Ron’s not a Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho fan? This may not throw Obama’s re-election but if so many 99%ters ‘CAN’T haz (a 0.99 cent) chezburger’, much less a roof over their heads, irritated and irradiated at every turn by the TSA at airportsm highways etc., Obama will not find this an easy election because with one of those Executive Order Edicts any of the above issues could be instantaneously resolved, with such a mandate but no action? . . . if an obviously American person born in America needs to go through the b.s. TSA dishes, the first person to be blamed will be the one man with the mandate to stop the b.s. : Dwayne. I mean Obama! There must be a safe list of Americans the TSA can let through without this sort of abuse right?

Debunking the inconsistencies of fast food AND a call to arms for F&B via quasi-facetious spoofing of BK’s pricing . . .

Now everyone can haz chezburger - 0.99 cent foods for the 99%!

Mini-Article 1.5

A sample of rural area drink prices in Malaysia (most areas in the cities are just the same as USA, horrendously expensive :

Meals for less than RM2 – By FARIK ZOLKEPLI farik@thestar.com.my – Sunday February 26, 2012

KUALA TERENGGANU: At Kedai Kopi Cik Nah, there is no fuss about rising costs of sugar, cooking oil or other essential stuff needed to run a coffeeshop.
Most of the food and drinks here sell at below RM2 and one could get a hot glass of teh tarik or Nescafe for less than RM1.
Those looking for nasi lemak can get a regular bungkus for 60 sen or a larger pack for RM1.
Serving up hot cakes: Norhalani preparing roti canai for her customers at her stall located at Kampung Losong Atap Zin near Taman Tamadun Islam in Kuala Terengganu.

There is also nasi dagang (Beef Rice) and nasi minyak (Butter Rice), which are sold at RM1.20 and RM1.60 respectively. The same items could cost twice as much at other restaurants, especially those in the city centre.

“I don’t understand how the rising cost of sugar or cooking oil had forced many restaurants to drastically increase their prices.

“We have not raised ours, except 10 sen or 20 sen for a cup of hot Milo,” said Norhalani Yusof, 33, who has taken over the running of the shop from her mother Sinnah Sulaiman.
Customers looking for a decent meal at budget prices have never stopped coming to the shop since 62-year-old Sinnah’s husband, Yusof Salleh, started it in 1992. He, however, died of a stroke in 1999, aged 58. Norhalani, a property investment consultant, said the family wants Sinnah or Cik Nah to her customers to retire after running the shop for 20 years.

Price list of drinks at Kedai Kopi Cik Nah below.

“She has worked for her children all her life … it is time for me to carry on the family business,” said Norhalani. The coffeeshop at Kampung Losong Atap Zin, near the Taman Tamadun Islam theme park here, draws mostly the local villagers.

“They come to our place at least six times a day. It would not be fair to charge them exorbitant prices. “Over the years, the shop became popular with others too, including professionals and government officers,” Norhalani told The Star when met at the coffeeshop yesterday.

She said the family business makes a “decent profit” despite keeping the prices low for 20 years. “We average 500 customers daily,” she said, adding that the shop was usually full during breakfast time. “The favourites among our regulars are nasi lemak, nasi dagang and nasi minyak,” she said, adding that the shop also sells 50 different kuih and local snacks.

“This area used to be considered a rural place but with rapid development over the years, our kampung is not so much a village anymore. “Despite this, we have no plans to increase our prices anytime soon,” she said, adding that the customers’ needs and satisfaction were important to the business.

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Prices are F&B franchise chain worthy but unless you are prepared to live in a somewhat scary AND quite faux-Arabic (they fashion their cities after Sunnite Arabia here, Malaysia’s ‘Islam’ inspired equivalent of ‘redneckland’ for lack of a better term – also you probably can’t buy property or invest to any great degree here, ask about Bumiputra Apartheid or Malay Reserved properties, which makes these places closed to virtually the world . . .) featuring social environment and interest, diversity AND tolerance level reminiscent of 1910s Hillbilly USA (not the bad manners mainly, but because they are living in another world – a faux Arabia (linguistically as well, conversations will likely be quite limited) – that most cosmopolitan types cannot identify with (whippings for drinking alcohol and limb chopping for theft) are being mooted by some political factions even now, with the main cities with airports already quite fundo and particularly insular though keeping a veneer of ‘civilisation’, most of the world should stick to hoping for Carl’s Jr to get their F&B groove on again than wait for Malaysia’s backwoods, though fabulously priced Kedai Kopi to branch out into the world, than wait for ‘modernity’ to reach this place. Nice for academics and retirees, anyone into anything slightly more interesting had better keep their distance, price is right for drinks and food, but the social scene is instant death sentence, or murder.

What’s that old saying about never working with children or animals? Salma Hayek struggles with a giant cat during photocall – by Jade Watkins Last updated at 3:48 AM on 27th September 2011

The late great comedian, W.C. Fields said you should ‘Never work with children or animals.’ But Salma Hayek didn’t have a choice when it came to that famous old chestnut as she promoted her film Puss in Boots in Moscow, today. The 45-year-old actress appeared to be struggling with a giant ginger cat handed to her by an assistant during a photo call for the 3D movie.

Moggy melee: Salma Hayek struggles with a giant ginger cat during a photocall to promote her 3D animated movie Puss In Boots in Moscow today Moggy melee: Salma Hayek struggles with a giant ginger cat during a photocall to promote her 3D animated movie Puss In Boots in Moscow today Dressed in a Russian-inspired outfit consisting of a black printed dress and leather knee high boots, she looked perplexed holding onto her heavy feline friend. She did however feel a little more comfortable clutching onto a white fluffy kitty, beaming for the cameras as she cuddled the furry moggy in her arms.

The brunette beauty was also joined by co-star Antonio Banderas, with whom she posed and hammed around with for some publicity snaps. Having a ball: The brunette beauty was also joined by co-star Antonio Banderas, with whom she posed and hammed around with for some publicity snaps Having a ball: The brunette beauty was also joined by co-star Antonio Banderas, with whom she posed and hammed around with for some publicity snaps

The 51-year-old Spaniard looked casual and cool in a pair of light denim jeans, grey t-shirt and a black leather motorcycle jacket. New animated film Puss In Boots sees Banderas reprise his role as the swashbuckling cat from the Shrek films. Salma is a new addition to the cast, playing Puss’s love interest, a tuxedo cat named Kitty Softpaws.

Feline friend: Salma appeared more comfortable clutching onto a white fluffy kitty; beaming for the cameras as she cuddled the furry creature in her arms Feline friend: Salma appeared more comfortable clutching onto a white fluffy kitty; beaming for the cameras as she cuddled the furry creature in her arms Look into my eyes: The actress and the creamy kitty appeared to be captivated by one another The 3D film, which has been in the works since 2004, won’t be released in cinemas until November this year. Salma touched down in Russia sometime in the last 24 hours with her gorgeous little girl Valentina.

Their arrival came after the pair surprised onlookers over the weekend as they were escorted through LAX airport in a wheelchair. Pushed by an airport official, at first glance there were fears that the actress may have had some kind of injury. I’m watching you: Antonio kept a close eye on the cuddly cat But it appeared that the Frida star and her adorable girl, who just turned four this week, were just taking a ride. The mother and daughter duo were smiling as they were wheeled around to the departure gate to catch a flight. Salma held on tight to her mini-me daughter, who was pretty in a pink sweater, a matching rosette headband and grey jeans.

Salma’s arrival in Russia came after she and her daughter Valentina surprised onlookers over the weekend when they were escorted through LAX airport in a wheelchair Ride: Salma’s arrival in Russia came after she and her daughter Valentina surprised onlookers over the weekend when they were escorted through LAX airport in a wheelchair Salma and her family have been seen happy and relaxed during their travels, despite being hounded by recent claims from supermodel Linda Evangelista that Salma’s husband François-Henri Pinault is the father of her four-year-old son Augustin. The supermodel is battling the CEO in a New York court for $46,000 (£28,000)-a-month child support. Meanwhile, the actress is currently taking a break from filming Oliver Stone’s Savages in Los Angeles.

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It’s not right to coddle an adult animal like this. Maybe a young a animal at most separated from it’s mother by uncaring breeders from a pet shop. Animals should be socialising with their own kind in a natural environment. This is so unnatural. Constitutes animal cruelty. If you love something, you will let it go free. What does it truly want? To run off probably – into the wilderness and hunt small mammals or small birds. Not be isolated from it’s own community or species and be coddled – some young pets have been ‘coddled’ to death by the way – who knows intentionally?

This is something like where Orang Utans are used as surrogate babies. Or cats are doomed to a life of brainwashing among their tyrant owners who imprint their twisted mentality on the animals. Well cats grow up, and they do not ask to be neutered either, was it consensual, was the pet consulted? Didn’t even bother to learn their language huh? How would owners like that done to them instead? Little wonder some of the same owners say they want to come back as a ‘pet’ animal, little do they know the poetic justice that awaits them . . . Keeping of pets in isolation from communication with other pets AND at their leisure to roam, live a natural life in natural environments will one day be known as a cruel and barbaric practice. We live in dark times indeed, both man and pet . . . (. . . think slave breeding pens in early America or hobbling of Natives by breaking their legs . . . )

ARTICLE 2

Lesbian The L Word actress thrown off Southwest Airlines flight for kissing her girlfriend by Daily Mail Reporters Last updated at 3:04 PM on 27th September 2011 Actress: Leisha Hailey said she was a victim of homophobic discrimination after being kicked off a flight

The lesbian star of ‘The L Word’ claimed in a stream of Twitter messages last night that she and her girlfriend were kicked off a Southwest Airlines plane for kissing during the flight. Leisha Hailey, 40, tweeted that a flight attendant had told her that Southwest ‘was a “family” airline and kissing was not ok’, and that she and her companion were then ‘escorted off the plane for getting upset about the issue’. ‘SouthwestAir endorses homophobic employees,’ she tweeted. ‘Since when is showing affection toward someone you love illegal? I want to know what Southwest Airlines considers a “family”.’ She went on to tweet: ‘Boycott SouthwestAir if you are gay.

They don’t like us.’ Hailey, who starred on Showtime network’s ‘The L Word’ as Alice, a bisexual magazine writer and radio host, also demanded a public apology. The 40-year-old has also had roles on Grey’s Anatomy, Drop Dead Diva and CSI and is part of the electropop duo band, Uh Huh Her. She came out as a lesbian at age 17 and previously had a five year relationship with Canadian country singer K.D. Lang. Personal identity: Leisha Hailey plays a bisexual magazine editor on ‘The L Word’ which centres around a group of lesbians and transgender people in LA Personal identity: Leisha Hailey plays a bisexual magazine editor on ‘The L Word’ which centres around a group of lesbians and transgender people in LA The airline issued a statement saying initial reports it received about the incident ‘indicate that we received several passenger complaints characterizing the behaviour as excessive’.

‘Our crew, responsible for the comfort of all customers on board, approached the passengers based solely on behaviour and not gender,’ the airline said. ‘The conversation escalated to a level that was better resolved on the ground, as opposed to in flight.’ ‘I condemn them’: Rick Santorum claims he didn’t hear gay soldier being booed at GOP debate The statement concluded: ‘We regret any circumstance where a passenger does not have a positive experience on Southwest and we are ready to work directly with the passengers involved to offer our heartfelt apologies for falling short of their expectation.

Vent: Leisha Hailey demanded a public apology from the airline via Twitter An airline spokesman declined to comment beyond the prepared statement. The incident comes a little over three weeks after another celebrity, Green Day rocker Billie Joe Armstrong, was complained he was booted from a Southwest flight in Oakland, California, because he was wearing his baggy pants too low. Actor and director Kevin Smith also ran into trouble with the low-cost airline last year when he was kicked off a flight for being too fat. The heavy star originally booked two seats, he jumped at the chance to fly standby on an earlier flight, where only one seat was available.

Though dress and size also seem to rile the airline, this is not the first time Southwest Airlines has been accused anti-gay remarks and actions. RadarOnline.com previously reported, an unnamed pilot was heard over the radio — unaware it was on — complaining that his co-workers were ‘a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes’ he doesn’t care to socialize with in between stops. An hour before the airline posted a link to the statement on its Twitter page, Hailey was retweeting a comment calling attention to a page on the Southwest website where the airline had highlighted its ‘outreach and commitment to the GLBT community’. Southwest is the official airline of GLAAD and other similar groups.

Outrage: Ms Hailey took to her twitter account to tell of the incident Talk about a megaphone: the actress has over 17,000 Twitter followers Comment: Southwest Airlines said they had to ask the actress and her girlfriend to leave after complaints from passengers.

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Sue the airline for apartheid. Also if you are a real star or even worth 5 million, you could get your own private plane or helicopter and a private landing helipad that can be chartered by ORDINARY folk. Don’t subject yourself to this nonsense by flying with the public airports.

ow about setting up a private airport with Lady Gaga for example to give the people an option against the TSA? Oops, I forgot, Lady Gaga isn’t into much more than cosplay and does not care about the way here monsters get treated by the TSA or that would be little monsters starve in shelters or soup kitchens.

Private airlines anyone? Hello? Has American democracy ended and all that remains are stars that cannot be allowed to kiss on an airline? That are content to play with their imagery while the world rots away? American society crumbles?

Appearing naked (kudos the San Franners and Oregoners also Naked Subway, naker Day people for telling them Nudity is as acceptable as Burkha – were there ghostly draped Muslim women in either town yet? It’s their right . . . ), publicly lesbian, or draped in innards once in a while (even all the time) does not count as democracy – especially if you’re that wealthy to provide an alternative to the abuse of Big Society. Enough cash to make a difference and not a cent back to the society that fostered you with their wealth where it counts . . .

SUMMARY Stars shine in as many ways as they can. The 2 above examples could very well be sheeple among stars or stars turning into sheeple.

Which star is starry enough to end the TSA by starting an affordable private liner with private airstrips? Have an LGBT kissing allowed flight with nude air attendants of all sexes? Come on – SHINE, and not to dazzle the sheeple, but where it democratically counts if you dare not even run for election like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzeneggar (terrible policy writer/vetter though – he terminated the people of California not the state of California) did.

ARTICLE 3

George Clooney released after Sudan embassy arrest – 16 March 2012 Last updated at 21:52 GMT

George Clooney: ‘We were all in a cell together. It was nice”

George Clooney has been arrested for civil disobedience during a demonstration outside Sudan’s embassy in Washington DC on Friday.

The actor was taking part in a protest to warn of a humanitarian crisis in the volatile border area between Sudan and South Sudan.

He was detained alongside his father, Nick, but both have now been released after paying bail of $100 (£63).

George Clooney is a keen Sudan activist and has visited the area several times.

South Sudan celebrated its independence from Sudan in 2011, but relations between the two neighbours have worsened since then.

The country is one of the world’s poorest regions and has hardly any roads, railways, schools or clinics as a result of two decades of conflict leading up to independence from Sudan in July 2011.

Bitter disagreements remain over oil resources and borders, with conflict raging in the border region – the focus for Clooney’s concern.
‘We hope it helps’

Speaking to reporters following his release, Clooney said his key concern was the fate of those in the region.

“Best estimate is tens of thousands of people are going to die from starvation… this isn’t a famine, this is a man-made tragedy by the government of Khartoum to get these people to leave.”

“You never know if you are accomplishing anything… We hope it helps,” Clooney said.
George Clooney

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

George Clooney gives evidence to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The actor said the arrest was his first, but added: “Let’s hope it’s my last.”

The Hollywood star, his father and fellow activists had been led away in handcuffs after reportedly ignoring repeated police warnings to leave the embassy grounds.

He was released three hours later after paying the bail fee.

Secret Service spokesman George Oglivie told the BBC how the arrest unfolded: “George Clooney was arrested for crossing a police line at the Sudan embassy and he’ll be transported to the Metropolitan police department second district.”

Also arrested, said Mr Oglivie, were Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights leader; Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern; Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran; and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People President Ben Jealous.

George Clooney’s arrest comes a day after he met President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the Sudan situation.

Ahead of the rally, he said he thought the president was “very engaged” on the issue of Sudan.

Clooney also called on the Sudanese government to allow humanitarian aid in to the area immediately and to “stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children”.

The actor recently secretly travelled across the border to the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, where his group apparently witnessed a rocket attack. A YouTube video of the visit was uploaded on Thursday.

He told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week that what was happening in the region was “ominously similar” to the violence in Darfur.

The UN estimates that nearly 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million been displaced since the Darfur conflict broke out in 2003.
Sudan: A country divided
Satellite image showing geography of Sudan, source: Nasa

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. South Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.
Map showing Ethnicity of Sudan, source:

Sudan’s arid north is mainly home to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in South Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own languages and traditional beliefs, alongside Christianity and Islam.
Map showing infant Mortality in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

The health inequalities in Sudan are illustrated by infant mortality rates. In South Sudan, one in 10 children die before their first birthday. Whereas in the more developed northern states, such as Gezira and White Nile, half of those children would be expected to survive.
Map showing percentage of households using improved water and sanitation in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

The gulf in water resources between north and south is stark. In Khartoum, River Nile, and Gezira states, two-thirds of people have access to piped drinking water and pit latrines. In the south, boreholes and unprotected wells are the main drinking sources. More than 80% of southerners have no toilet facilities whatsoever.
Map showing percentage of who complete primary school education in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

Throughout Sudan, access to primary school education is strongly linked to household earnings. In the poorest parts of the south, less than 1% of children finish primary school. Whereas in the wealthier north, up to 50% of children complete primary level education.
Map showing percentage of households with poor food consumption in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

Conflict and poverty are the main causes of food insecurity in Sudan. The residents of war-affected Darfur and South Sudan are still greatly dependent on food aid. Far more than in northern states, which tend to be wealthier, more urbanised and less reliant on agriculture.
Map showing position of oilfileds in Sudan, source: Drilling info international

Sudan exports billions of dollars of oil per year. Southern states produce more than 80% of it, but receive only 50% of the revenue. The pipelines run north but the two sides have still not agreed how to share the oil wealth in the future.

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
That $100 fine is laughable. Heck any 99%ter would not be given that ‘privilege’ and limelight for $100. The whole thing was contrived media b.s.! Stars do not best aid their country by leading limelight gaining protests but they CAN do something concrete like what Oprah did (schools in Africa), or open shelters for Veterans. This Sudan protest b.s. is high profile self promoting b.s..

It would be better to open a ‘Recuperation-Retirement Barracks’ (on the cheap somewhere so that more veterans can be housed, for the dignity of the ex-servicemen too injured to serve, than to perhaps let them DIE in dignity in than homeless on the street. George owes the military that much! Made a bundle off the film while the actual soldiers returend home to nothing? Its just a few meals and some cheap structures, Mr 160 million asset Plutocrat Thespian George.

Thats more than 300 401Ks you got there ‘Major Gates’. Support at least 100 veterans or go back to being a pretty boy (or as Hollywood says ‘Golden Boy’ i.e. Apple Polisher?). In any case People who defended the country are freezing or dying out there while you make noise about Sudan . . . while USA gets ass kicked by sang n1gg3rs, guess what plutocrats are doing? Profiting off the pain of others who defended them . . .

ARTICLE 4

Pulling no punches! Following her painful split from Russell Brand, Katy Perry goes to war in video for Part Of Me – By Holly Thomas – PUBLISHED: 15:42 GMT, 16 March 2012 | UPDATED: 17:11 GMT, 16 March 2012

Her divorce from Russell Brand has dominated headlines, and the pairs’ individual reactions to the break-up have been documented at every painful turn.

Following reports surfacing of Russell making a return to his former Lothario ways, Katy appears to have gone into army-mode, and a clip from her forthcoming video for the single Part Of Me shows an unfamiliar side of the star.

Wearing full camouflage and face paint, Katy is seen being pulled to the ground and wrestling in the mud.

Scroll down for video…

It’s war: A clip from Katy Perry’s forthcoming video for her single Part Of Me shows the star in full army-mode

At one point the Teenage Dream singer is seen struggling underwater with a fellow ‘solider’.

Katy is seen sporting tomboyish short dark hair, a departure from her usual colourful locks.

She announced the preview on Twitter, writing:

‘That was THEN & this is NOW: Sneak peek of my NEW VIDEO for #PARTOFME http://vevo.ly/yUcXvb @vevo. IN FULL EFFECT 3.21.12. RT!’

(Hey you know what twitter or html looks like? See below : )

yUcXvb @vevo. IN FULL EFFECT 3.21.12. RT!

Speculation had surrounded the singer’s new single Part of Me, which she performed at the Grammys and appeared to be about estranged husband Russell Brand.

With lyrics like, ‘You can keep the diamond ring – it don’t mean nothing anyway,’ many people believed that the song was aimed at the British comedian.

GI Katy: Katy sports tomboyish short dark hair in the tough new video, a departure from her usual colourful locks

Working out some aggression? The video sees Katy wrestling another female soldier in the mud

However, the 27-year-old has insisted that the track was written years before she even married Russell and their on going divorce proceedings have nothing to do with the song, despite their obvious relevance.

Katy said: ‘I wrote Part of Me two years ago and I always knew that Part of Me was a special song.

‘It feels like my life plays out with these songs. I feel like I’m in some kind of weird ‘Truman Show’ where I’m like, ‘Why is this single appropriate now and it wouldn’t have been appropriate then?’ It’s just so crazy.’

Tomboy: Katy is seen sporting short dark hair, a departure from her usual colourful locks

The blue-haired star added: ‘I guess the universe is kind of – we’re kind of like, dancing together in some weird way.

‘Does that make sense or am I being too hippie? I think it’s really important for me to write songs that are still honest and relatable because that’s what everyone else is going through.’

Her new song debuted during her performance at the Grammy Awards last month and it went straight to number one on the Billboard charts.

Mixed message: Katy says that the song was written long before her break-up with Russell, but there’s not denying the pertinence of the lyrics to her current situation

It was produced by Dr. Luke and mosty written by Bonnie McKee whom both were at the helm for her other chart toppers including California Gurls, Teenage Dream, and Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).

The breakup anthem should help the star get over Russell, who is reportedly dating Mexican artist Oriela Medellin Amieiro, and her friends are encouraging her to get back in the saddle.

A source told HollywoodLife.com: ‘Katy has been very upset about the divorce.

Usual look: Katie looked pretty as usual as she performed at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles earlier this week

‘She never expected it to end and now she’s dealing with the aftermath.

‘But her friends are telling her to get back out there and date. They don’t want her to waste time being upset over Russell.’

Meanwhile Katy’s former love has found himself in hot water after being arrested form criminal damage to property.

Unforeseen trauma: Katy never expected to have to deal with divorce

A warrant was out for the actor’s arrest was issued soon after he threw a photographer’s phone through a window.

The 36-year-old comedian turned himself in to police in New Orleans Sheriff’s office today after learning he was wanted by officers.

According to TMZ, Russell was charged on two counts of simple criminal damage to property.
Russell Brand arrested for criminal damage after ‘throwing iPhone through window’

Katy’s video will premiere worldwide during MTV First: Katy Perry on Wednesday, March 21, at 7:23 p.m. ET on MTV.

The star will also chat to MTV’s James Montgomery for 30-minutes about the video, her forthcoming album, Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (out March 26), and her forthcoming concert movie, Katy Perry: Part of Me.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

Damn, if people/journalists want to comment on military matters they should have some knowledge. She’s not dressed as an American soldier, she’s dressed as a United States Marine. The combats she’s wearing are MARPAT not UCP. Duh!

– Tony, Basingstoke, 16/3/2012 19:44
Rating 2

I can definitely relate to the ‘Truman Show’ comment…it’s weird having those out-of-body experiences, and I’m sure being in the spotlight only amplifies it. Kudos to her for still maintaining her creative drive, despite going through a rough emotional patch. Some people handle things like this much worse.

– JT, San Francisco, CA, 16/3/2012 19:42
Rating 2

For a moment, I thought the top picture was Elijah Wood.

– floss, uk, 16/3/2012 19:35
Rating 5

Thought it was Adam Ant in the face paint!

– Caz56, London, England, 16/3/2012 19:25
Rating (0)

Is it me or does she look like Elijah Wood in the first pic?

– unknown, birmingham, 16/3/2012 19:04
Rating 24

I thought this was a photo of Elijah Wood!

– Neil, Maidenhead, UK, 16/3/2012 19:02
Rating 20

I’m sorry, but it’s impossible to take this woman seriously, so why produce a video with a military theme?? She’s all bubblegum.

– JR, San Francisco, CA, 16/3/2012 18:36
Rating 10

Honest to god… When I saw that first picture on the homepage I thought it was Elijah Wood.

– Dee, UK, 16/3/2012 18:33
Rating 6

She looks great, nice song and i’m looking foward to the full video.

– Sarah, UK, 16/3/2012 18:31
Rating 5

Thought it was Elijah Wood in the 1st pic!

– Paul , Essex, England, 16/3/2012 18:28

[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]

Keep in character and donate something to the suffering veterans. Not lose character and go to the battlefield and become a celebrity liability like Prince William is in the eyes of the Navy. As for the other issue if not something contrived . . . school really never taught about this . . .